Don't listen to the negative reviews

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

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.

How can anyone watching this not feel anything but compassion and pity for these two women? Neither are mean or evil.....they just refuse to accept reality. The acting performances of Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore are extraordinary. These two women descend into a world where (among other delusions) they don't even understand that their house is completely unfit to live in, and that it is perfectly acceptable to have raccoons and cats living in your house. It's a great study of what co-dependency is all about. You really can't even get upset with the two sons...how can you reason with a woman who will not listen to simple common sense? One of the best parts is that it is based on a real story. Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore are outstanding. This film is definitely worth watching.

The myth has been shattered....again.Made-for-TV movies can indeed equal - or even surpass - high-class theatrical releases. "Grey Gardens" is proof of this. HBO does not aspire to replace the 1975 documentary "Grey Gardens," but rather to supplement it with an account of the lives of the two Edith Beales. The storyline is mainly set at Grey Gardens, the elegant manor in which the Beales reside. As the story opens, "Big Edie" (Jessica Lange) is a high-society woman, and "Little Edie" (Drew Barrymore) is a fresh-faced girl with doll-like clothes and a sweet disposition. Grey Gardens itself is glorious to behold.As the film progresses, the house begins to wither and fade. Its occupants start to experience the trials of aging and poor health. The house becomes their island: a place of isolation and decay. This is where the documentary begins, but it's treated as a framework in the film version."Grey Gardens" tells a story that is both highly specific and completely universal. It deals with missed opportunities, loneliness, aging, and the consequences of seemingly small decisions. Jessica Lange does wonderful work as the matriarch, and Jeanne Tripplehorn and Charles Albert lend invaluable support. Still, the film's revelation is Drew Barrymore. She portrays the most dynamic character, and she pulls it off with great verve and aplomb. She captures the accent, the mannerisms, the sadness, and the vitality of "Little Edie." "Grey Gardens" is an emotional roller-coaster, to use a cliché. It builds slowly, so give it the patience it deserves, and it will deliver.

****possible spoiler***** It's a real challenge to make a movie about a mother and daughter both equally quasi-demented, deluded, and self-absorbed that holds our interest and makes us care about them. And this flick doesn't meet the challenge. I remember a critic saying once that the truest test of film-making is to make us care about the characters. After watching the insufferable antics of these two highly unlikable women for about forty-five minutes I reached the "why do I care" stage. I was strongly tempted to press the "stop", button, something I have done for a very limited list of truly awful movies, but by then the "train wreck" syndrome had set in; i.e. you know, it's a horrible situation but still you can't take your eyes away and you want to see how bad the damage is. I have not seen the original "Grey Gardens" documentary done by the Maysles brothers, but it is difficult to avoid thinking of them as two vultures, for salaciously poking into the lives of two women who, like so many others with less famous connections, have fallen into decrepitude, squalor and semi-insanity. If these women had not been related to Jacqueline Kennedy, would the original documentary have been made? But I digress. I did watch all the way to the end and the final "reconciliation" scene was to me neither moving nor convincing. Fuggedaboutit.