I'll tell you why so serious

An Exercise In Nonsense

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

While in some ways Grey Gardens (1975) feels like a prototype for our modern reality TV shows, it is much deeper and more revealing than any reality TV show has ever been. The mother and daughter are tightly codependent upon one another, and Little Edie in particular seems more than a little bitter about the trajectory her life has taken.The movie has a lot of funny lines and moments (Little Edie's dance numbers, Big Edie offering the caretaker Jerry some of her corn (boiled on her bedside table!), Little Edie feeding the raccoon, the elusive "Libra man"), but it is mainly tragic. These women are anchored to the past, looking over black and white photographs and lovely paintings of their past, while discussing how their choices affected them. They often discuss men and marriage, Big Edie ruefully mentioning that she'd take a dog over a man any day (we later learn she and her husband had a nasty separation). Yet despite the squalor these women live in, in a strange way they don't seem to miss the socialite circles they used to move within, particularly Big Eadie.This is a strange documentary, disturbing. I don't fully know what to make of it or its subjects, but I will say it is well worth seeing.

Not the people who star in this wanton documentary, oh no. They have souls and they pine for their pasts and they regret profoundly, the way that we all do. They simply have the misfortune of having their innermost regrets and thoughts splayed out comically for all the world to see.I felt for these women so acutely. They love each other and fit together like a favorite pair of well worn shoes, but their devotion to each other seems to have robbed them of the vibrancy that they used to posses. They bicker and poke at each other because it's all they have left of the joys of life, a life that was more than enough for the both of them until these movie makers decided to bring up 'what ifs' and 'could have beens' from the past. It just seemed so cruel to put them through it. It was also unkind the way that they present the house as a dump when, from where I'm sitting, it looks like a perfectly comfortable and homey place to live. Just because these women don't adhere to the standard of the one percent doesn't make their home--full of warmth and genuine affection, a squalor shack. I cannot get behind this famed documentary because it cruelly dramatizes the wasted hopes and past dreams of a mother and daughter who lived, by any standards, a full life. Cruelty should not be regarded as art.

You should see this unique film because you have never seen anything like it before. A landmark documentary style film that is spellbinding to watch, somewhat like watching a train wreck- you can't take your eyes off of it. An eccentric mother and daughter, the Bouvier-Beales, from an aristocratic French/American family, live in poverty in their crumbling mansion with cats and raccoons. This is all true and shown in stark reality with camera work and editing that is what I would describe as effective in this case, although somewhat unorthodox. It is difficult for me to perceive it as exploitive because the two women seem to enjoy having company and performing before the cameras, but the exploitive/invited paradox is one of this strange phenomenon's compelling aspects. Another factor complicating this aspect is that apparently it was their cousin, Lee Bouvier Radziwill, who initially contacted the film-makers although she later renounced the results. So the film crew did not just wander in; they were invited into the project (as it was originally conceived) by a responsible and highly-placed relative.It is hard to put "Grey Gardens" into perspective, but consider that although these women both lived long lives (both lived to be over 80 years old) we are seeing their lives at their nadir. Would a film showing a short period of anyones's life at its absolute low point be flattering to that person? One can only wonder what types of mental conditions or co-dependencies we may be observing while watching "Grey Gardens", and of course it is somewhat sad, but don't miss this film. You will probably never forget it.

In SALESMAN, we saw traveling salesmen going door to door peddling copies of The Big Book of Jewish Fairy Tales (as comedians Bill Maher, Jon Stewart and Lewis Black call the bible); in GREY GARDENS, we see the Rich as they slowly rot away in their crumbling castles. This is rot as seen from the Inside. No, not "rot," per se; rather, DECOMPOSITION: slow dissolution. Slow decay, on full display. "You shouldn't have a contact with The Outside World," "Big Edie" warns her mostly bed-ridden mother before pirouetting around the house like the young child she proclaims herself to be (her obsession with her looks and her weight aren't necessarily strange, but this self-proclaimed "eternal youth" is). GREY GARDENS is often difficult to watch, simply because there's not a lot going on- and, if not for the family name, it's unlikely anyone would've EVER heard of these two recluses. I wasn't particularly moved by it, but I'm sure the late Shirley Jackson would've understood.