The acting in this movie is really good.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

In 1973, brothers Albert Maysles (Arye Gross) and David Maysles (Louis Ferreira) arrive in East Hampton, NY to do a documentary about mother and daughter Edith 'Big Edie' Ewing Bouvier Beale (Jessica Lange) and Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale (Drew Barrymore) living in the rundown Grey Gardens estate. Little Edie's famous cousin Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (Jeanne Tripplehorn) used to visit during the summer. In flashbacks starting in 1936, Little Edie simply wants to be a famous dancer. Big Edie wants her to find a husband with a long leash. Her father Phelan Beale (Ken Howard) wants someone to take care of her. Instead, she's in New York sleeping with married Julius 'Cap' Krug (Daniel Baldwin). Phelan leaves Big Edie. Little Edie starts losing her hair and gets pulled back home by Big Edie. When Phelan dies, Big Edie refuses to sell Grey Gardens with only a small trust that can't maintain the estate.The acting is excellent. Lange is never wrong and Barrymore does a nice job in her older role. The women's story in their earlier days is not quite dramatic enough. It is their older selves where their compelling characters become truly dramatic. The years of disappointments and their old wounds make them great characters. Their scenes with Jackie is terrific. Their relationship is built on years of unfulfilled wishes and faded glory.

1975's documentary about the Jacqueline Onassis' crazy Aunt "Big" Edie and loony cousin "Little" Edie is as much a meditation on the sheer power of celebrity as actual entertainment. Effectively the movie is an episode of something you would see on A&E television (didn't that stand for "Arts & Entertainment" at one time, why is wall-to-wall drug addicts, hoarders, obsessive-compulsives and other group therapy frequenters?) However, unlike A&E there is no narration just Big Edie and Little Edie talking gibberish mostly over each other and thus there is no context except the link to the Bouvier family and their link to power (John F. Kennedy -- greatest philanderer ever) and money (Aristotle Onassis greatest negotiator ever -- supposedly his prenup with Jackie promised him 3 conjugal visits per week (I'm just bitter because mine only guarantees me 3 in total over the life of the marriage)). Anyway, for the extended run-time of the film Big Edie rolls around, often unclothed, in a bed covered with the detritus of lunacy while Little Edie runs around feeding all of the many cats (most movie stereotypes are false except perhaps that very nutty people often have a lot of cats) and the occasional raccoon. Suffice to say if Big E and Little E were unconnected to the vaunted "America's royalty" they would be the women you don't notice downtown on the park bench who couldn't get spare change off of much less the attention of the directing team of Maysels, Hovde and, yes, "Muffie" Meyer. In short, turn off the DVD and turn on A&E ("Addled" & "Eccentric"?)

An American tragedy if there ever was one: A story of two fallen women, mother and daughter. This film is best appreciated along with the original documentary of same name, done in 1975. In the 2009 film, Lange and Barrymore are both outstanding. Drew deserved her Golden Globe with her best performance. She captures the look and emotional immaturity of "Little Edie." The one thing she didn't capture was the flashes of Edie's brilliant mind. As young women, both mother and daughter were stunning beauties, but they fancied themselves as singers and dancers, which neither were. Little Edie, if she had a true talent, would probably have been in poetry, her brother was an excellent writer-only her untreated mental illness held her back. In a nutshell, these two women were used to having servants and having everything done for them, and who had the rug pulled out from under them by Big Edie's separation and their following lack of money. A reversal of fortune. As time passed, Mother Beale became lonely and she was dominating by nature, while her daughter was gentle and sweet, mentally ill, and had no other place to go. They kept each other company for 20 years, and without servants, they simply stopped doing anything. They never took out the garbage or cleaned, and were surrounded by cats and even fed the critters in the attic. They simply entertained each other as if they both were still in high society, reliving their past glories and current resentments. The Beale women were like modern day Magnificent Ambersons or Blanche Dubois's, holding onto their past gentility while being unable to see for themselves what they had become. A Fascinating story showing the fine line between success and failure, and the difference between talent and ambition. These ladies sought their life's fulfillment in places in which they had no talent. Little Edie was brilliant and artistic; she just wasn't an actress or dancer.

After watching the original so called "documentary", I could not help but feel sympathy for the Beales and to loathe the Maysles brothers for exploiting these two women. I fail to understand how anyone could not see the brothers for what they were. They were nothing but voyeurs selling their product as art. At least this movie makes some attempt to fill in some of the blanks. Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange's portrayals in the later years were quite good. Jessica Lange's physical resemblance and mannerisms were eerily accurate. The early years in the "documentary" were only noted by showing some actual old photographs of Big Edie and Little Edie when they were both much younger. It's hard to believe if you haven't seen those photos, that the Beales in their prime were more beautiful than the actresses portraying them. This was especially true of Big Edie who looked regal in some of the photos. Toward the end of this movie, both actresses conveyed (very subtly), the main characters' distaste for how the "documentary" depicted them, while they were in no financial position to oppose the release of the film. This to me was the most redeeming aspect of this film.