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Grey Gardens

Review of 1975 Documentary

Grey Gardens was a ground-breaking documentary in 1975; forty years later, I’m still fascinated. The film takes you into the raw, real lives of a riches to rags mother and daughter pair who maintain their highly educated and aristocratic personalities among the squalor of their crumbling East Hampton New York mansion. Both women are named Edie, so they become known as “Big Edie” and “Little Edie.” After losing their wealth, mostly due to Big Edie’s divorce to her lawyer husband, they become reclusive in the only thing Big Edie got from the divorce, the “summer home” in East Hampton. 

The mansion becomes rundown and unkept, and the women end up sharing the house with many cats and raccoons. They also happen to be the aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The loving, but often tumultuous relationship between these two women is like a train wreck, you can’t look away. They pull you in with their bizarre adaptations to losing everything except the house “Grey Gardens” that has become uninhabitable. They are basically living off their past and their regrets, and continuously lamenting and reminiscing about their lost high society lives. Big Edie is a realist while Little Edie is a wise, but eccentric philosopher. Over the years, the film has earned a cult-like following and is a must watch for any film enthusiast. 

This documentary also inspired these spin-offs: The Beales of Grey Gardens, 2006 (basically a part-two of the original); Grey Gardens the Broadway musical, 2006; Grey Gardens, 2009, the HBO film. This movie is interesting because it gives a back story to Big and Little Edie. Lastly, That Summer, 2017, created from previously lost footage from a documentary about East Hampton by Lee Radziwill, Jackie’s younger sister. This documentary was never completed, however it was during this filming that the creators of Grey Gardens – Albert and David Maysles – discovered the Edies and decided to make the now classic 1975 documentary.

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