Grey Gardens

I'm not really in love or even in like with Drew Barrymore. But, she managed to transform herself and she changed my mind in Grey Gardens. Drew plays Little Edie and Jessica Lange plays her mother, Big Edie. The movie spans a time frame from the 1930s until the present. And, let me tell you, the aging make-up is really well done. Drew, especially, is really transformed. But, it's not only the make-up. I've never seen the real Little Edie, but I would like to. If she is anything like Drew's rendition (and word on the street is that she is), then she is a total character, dancing all the time and telling a whopper of a lie whenever she can.

The women are Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy's relatives and that is really why they get any attention at all. Two documentary filmmakers befriend them and work on their movie. So, we see the documentary being shot. (The real documentary is available to view.) And, we see the two Edies--especially Little Edie--react to their camera. The mother is over the top and fun and that eccentricity has rubbed off on Little Edie. She is a dancer and a performer and lives to be "on."

What do you do with a caricature of a mother who loves you very much and nurtures you and encourages you to stay in her own crazy world and life? Well, Little Edie stays for a long time. The mother and daughter eventually live in squalor as their trust fund dwindles and their balance of real and imagined becomes more off-kilter.

Grey Gardens is not so much of a downer as it is kind of funny and charming. The Edies are so alive, so camera-ready, and so poised to make their mark that their housing conditions seem like only an after thought. I guess Little Edie is living in Florida now. If she's still doing a cabaret act, I would totally go see her.