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Reviews
Grey Gardens (1975)
A Fascinating Character Study
The documentary Grey Gardens, directed by the Maysles brothers was a groundbreaking installment of the cinema verite film movement. Edith and Edie Beale were eccentric people, and the Maysles took advantage of that with them being the subjects of Grey Gardens. There is no topic or lesson to be taught to the audience, rather it is like a peek into the daily life of of two co-dependent, sheltered women inside their dirty, dilapidated mansion.The heart of the film is the toxic relationship between a mother and daughter. Edie constantly confides to the camera that she "can't take another winter here in the country" and yet doesn't leave, and hasn't for twenty-five years. Her mother said "You can't have freedom when you are being supported", which resonated as a driving factor for why Edie is trapped in her forlorn life. Edie is stuck in the past, and obsessed with being famous and beautiful. She revels in the camera's attention, as if she finally got her big break that she gave up years ago to care for her mother. Their bickering and backwards conversations flanked by piles of filth and feral animals is sickening, but a depressingly true reality for these women obsessed with what could have been.