This HBO movie starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange won wide praise. But Grey Gardens (2009) is not exactly a feel good movie...it is psychologically disturbing, as two co-dependent women, mother and daughter, manipulate each other and prey on each other's weaknesses, to become recluses in a broken down mansion.
What is more disturbing is that this is a true story.
Based on a 1975 documentary of the same name, Grey Gardens tells the story of the Beale's, relatives of Jackie Kennedy Onassis. The mother, Lange, pretty much castrates any freedom of daughter, Barrymore, because she knows how to prey on her fragile psyche. And she wants her daughter to dote upon her, and stay with her forever...because, she is so screwed up, she cannot fathom being alone, without someone waiting on her every whim.
This is not a loving story of mother and daughter.
The movie shows the documentary being filmed (in the extras they show excerpts and you can see how spot on the actresses were) but goes much further than the documentary in showing these two women. As the mansion falls to ruin around them, and they have no money, the become increasingly insular, until finally Jackie O. hears about it and helps restore the home. But she cannot restore a healthy ego to either of them, and the continue their terrible, crippling co-dependence.
Grey Gardens is a very good film...I can recognize that, and see the remarkable acting of the two leads. But it is not a movie that really left me feeling good at all...it left me feeling like I stared at a fatal car wreck too long.
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