Synopsis
Grey Gardens (2009) is an HBO drama directed by Michael Sucsy, available to watch online on iFILM. It draws on the true lives of Jackie Kennedy Onassis's aunt and cousin — a mother and daughter both named Edith Bouvier Beale.
The story stretches across nearly four decades. Once-glittering Park Avenue socialites, the two women gradually wall themselves off inside a crumbling Long Island estate that gives the film its name. The money runs out, the friends fall away, and the house rots around them — raccoons, cats, mountains of trash — while their grip on reality thins to almost nothing. Things come to a head when the health department threatens to throw them out. Jessica Lange plays the stubborn mother, Drew Barrymore the daughter caught between dreams of a stage career and devotion to her mom; Barrymore's turn as the eccentric "Little Edie" is the film's main draw.
Sucsy weaves his reconstruction together with echoes of the famous 1975 documentary about the same pair, and the picture picked up several Emmy Awards. It's for anyone drawn to stories of family love that slowly hardens into a cage. Stream Grey Gardens (2009) online on iFILM.
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