Last night I sat and watched this film, starring Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore, and released this year. What a brilliant film, what brilliant acting.
Drew, who normally has quite a noticeable speech impediment, took vocal coaching to learn how to speak EXACTLY like Little Edie. Boy, did she do a super job. As did Jessica.
So super, that these women come across very spooky on the TV screen.
Apparently, much of the film was shot in Toronto -- news to me!
What was even spookier was right after the movie finished, another GREY GARDENS came on, but this time it was the actual documentary released in 1975 about Big Edie and Little Edie. I was very tired and could only stay up to watch a little of the movie, but the eeriness was in the fact that the dialogue, the scenery, the wardrobe were identical (as much as can be) to what I'd watched for two hours prior. Having seen the great similarities, I could then stress even more what fabulous acting Jessica and Drew did.
I do recommend both the documentary and the contemporary films. Perhaps rent them both and watch them in the other order than what I saw: watch the earlier movie first and see how well it was interpreted and reenacted by the 2009 crew.
Another "thinking man's film."
2 comments:
when you get a chance, you should also watch The Beales... or it's named something like that. It's part 2 of their original documentary with more of them singing. Last summer I was in NYC and rented a car and drove out to East Hampton and walked around Gray Gardens. Amazing. It's beautiful and has been restored. I stood there staring at the house thinking that it really wasn't all that long ago they were living there. And even little Jackie O used to play there as a kid. I want to rent the documentaries again and watch them. (I happened to do a quick google search on them and that's why I happened upon your blog...) hope that was okay to barge in like that.
I didn't know this made it to the theater! I thought it was a TV movie. OK. Gotta watch!
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