Grey Gardens

Grey Gardens refers to a piece of land in which lived 2 relatives of Jacqueline Onassis (Jeanne Tripplehorn from Big Love), namely her aunt 'Big' Edith Bouvier Beale (Jessica Lange, who is always wonderful) with her daughter 'Little' Edith Bouvier Beale (played wonderfully well by Drew Barrymore, in one of her best roles of her career, I must say) who live in this house that's literally tearing apart, with dozens of cats and even a pet racoon which they adopted and with all this trash and walls falling apart, even a tree that's growing inside the home!!!
Luckily, we get to see how the house would have looked like in its prime, back in the 1930's. We see how glamorous their lives used to be, how Big Edith used to entertain her guests at her beautiful home in Long Island. She had a piano man whom she used to be in love with, even though she was married to a businessman, she didn't care, she lived her life to the fullest and she just loved her piece of land so very much. Little Edith wanted to go to New York, though, she wanted to be a big movie star and wanted to become someone even though her mother didn't approve of her moving to the big city, she did it anyways.
Drew Barrymore's character is so full of hope and big dreams that she cannot just contain them to herself, she comes to NYC in hopes of meeting a Hollywood producer who will discover her and she could land a role in a movie or something. She even encounters a famous producer whom she was infatuated with (sorry, I forgot his name) and starts putting on a show while he's having dinner with some very important people, it was kind of hilarious but it seems as if he actually really had liked her and even asked for her to come and see him for a possible role in his next movie. He's not the only one that notices her that night, though...
She gets to know this distinguished and very married Daniel Baldwin (he's the oldest of the Baldwins, I think) and of course she falls in love with him and wants to keep him around but, as we'll soon learn, Big Edith doesn't like her daughter to be so far away from her. Mother is very jealous of her daughter's new life and seeing that everybody's left her including her husband, her piano man lover and even her maids have been long gone now, she has no other option but to bring her daughter along to share her misery. At first, Little Edith is disgusted upon arriving at Grey Gardens, and who could really blame her. The house is a total mess, trash is all over the place, the once green garden has become a shadow of what it used to be. It's as if the house was also depressed along with its occupants, as if the life had been taken away from this place.
Little Edith has pretty much become the only companion her mother has and even though she was young and had a pretty good attitude she also became trapped in this isolated property where little by little it became their prison without bars.
Even upon learning that her ex-husband had died and her sons encouraged Big Edith to leave Grey Gardens for another property easier to maintain, she was determined to never sell her property at any cost, even if it meant the world to her only daughter. Everybody had given up on them, even her own 2 sons and pretty much everyone they knew had abandoned them. They struggled to make ends meet, barely managed to pay their ulitilies and their house pretty much had become unbearable to live.
That is until one day their house was reportedly inspected due to complaints from their neighbors, they came with warrants and Little Edith had no choice but letting them in. What they saw was pretty unbelievable, with the trash, all those cats and even the wild racoon that decided to move in with these eccentric ladies, they immediately started taking everything away and quickly became a scandal to the press.
Little Edith didn't mind this though, she even invited a journalist into their home to take pictures and interview them, thinking that the exposure will actually help their situation.
Unfortunately, once published, they realized what a big mistake they had done. The press is relentlessly publishing pictures of the mother and daughter weird house and themselves posing as if nothing was wrong with their lives. One thing that struck me was how cool they seemed to be with the situation, even though their house is tearing apart yet their spirit is high and their dignity remains intact.
It's such a powerful film that actually came about a documentary of the 2 Ediths which became a sensation in the 1970's (it came out in 1975, actually) and it gave us a inside look at the lives of 2 wonderful ladies with such an incredible story and a very touching backstory. It's even become a Broadway musical!!
I believe this is certainly gonna make Drew Barrymore win her Emmy this time around, before this movie she was just a goofy yet charismatic actress but with this film she's proven to have the skills to carry out this film and outshine Jessica Lange who is amazing as well in her role as a controlling and misguided mother.
Two (or should I say four?) thumbs way up for this movie, now I need to rent the documentary.
Blockbuster, here I come!!