Review of HBO's Grey Gardens movie- Page 2

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/19/09 at 12:12am

She's a friggin' BARRY-more.

"Unforgettable" is imprinted in her DNA.
John Barrymore as Richard III (in Henry Vi, Part One, actually)

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 4/19/09 at 12:39am

Brilliant.. I loved it. Malcolm Gets is uber-adorable.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 4/19/09 at 11:01am

It was much better than I'd been expecting it to be. I think it was Jessica Lange's show all the way, she seemed to have a much better handle on Big Edie than Barrymore had on Little Edie.

On the whole, I think this HBO film is a far more successful dramatization of the documentary than the musical. Both women got fuller attention, and you just can't beat Jessica Lange's embodiment of Big Edie at all the stages of her life. Drew did her best, but just couldn't keep up, and the prosthetic makeup didn't help matters. To be fair, I thought Barrymore was best in the younger Edie sequences, when she wasn't so stuck re-creating scenes and attitudes from the Maysles film.

[Jane2]

Posted: 4/19/09 at 11:05am

I had read one critic's review and in it was mentioned the fact that due to cosmetic surgery, Jessica Lange's face no longer had any movement. I wish I hadn't read that because it was on my mind during the entire film.

Don't get me wrong though, that's the worst I can say about this very good film.

Updated On: 4/19/09 at 11:05 AM

[nmartin]

Posted: 4/19/09 at 11:39am

Watched it. Liked it. Didn't love it.
There's no substitute for the original.

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 4/19/09 at 12:25pm

I thought it was fantastic all the way around.

I was blown away by Jessica AND Drew.

I also thought they did a terrific job on the age make up, but I couldn't take my eyes off off Drews arms in the finale. They looked like they were covered in burn scars.

I did wonder why Jerry was never mentioned and Malcom Getz' role was not even disscussed. He was just 'there', and then he left. They must have cut SOMETHING out because there seemed to be a lack of character development with his part.

*Can you believe I ordered HBO just to see this? I called yesterday and said, "Can you turn it on today?!"

It was worth it!*

Updated On: 4/19/09 at 12:25 PM

[Jane2]

Posted: 4/19/09 at 12:36pm

"It was worth it!"

You won't be sorry. They have some of the best programming you can get on tv!

[SNAFU]

Posted: 4/19/09 at 12:39pm

Kudos to the make up department who gave Jessica Big Edie's flappy arms!!! I was very impressed with that!

[Auggie27]

Posted: 4/19/09 at 3:50pm

Loved them both.

Reminds me that we don't see Lange nearly enough. I love her work in films no one saw or liked -- i.e. LOSING ISAIAH; she was riveting in that.

This is a remarkable project -- rather daring in many ways -- and to me, it worked, all of it.

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 4/19/09 at 10:01pm

For me, definitely not as "successful" as the musical (not that I would choose that adjective to discuss the two.) Frankel and Korie communicate so much through the score that narrative storytelling could never express. I don't think this version of reality explains any more than the musical or doc does. They're 3 creations of 3 directors (all controlled by Little Edie!) The reality is...we'll never know the reality. In many ways, a person's life is better understood on an intuitive and spiritual level.

Updated On: 4/19/09 at 10:01 PM

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 4/19/09 at 10:46pm

I was impressed with Jessica Lange's makeup through it's progression. As soon as they started aging her, she began to look like Big Edie. Pretty incredible.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/19/09 at 10:48pm

I was astonished at how much depth and how many emotional colors Jessica Lange was able to bring to Big Edie.

[Jane2]

Posted: 4/19/09 at 10:51pm

"As soon as they started aging her, she began to look like Big Edie. Pretty incredible."

Yes, that's true. She looked like Jessica Lange before she aged, and the more makeup they applied, the more she disappeared into the character.

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 4/20/09 at 12:06am

I was really impressed at how well they made Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore LOOK alike, you know, as though they were actually mother and daughter.

I remember a long, long time ago when people snickered at Jessica Lange and thought she was just a "pretty face." I think she is such a fine actress...who also has a pretty face.

Updated On: 4/20/09 at 12:06 AM

[SNAFU]

Posted: 4/20/09 at 12:17am

I fell in love with Jessica Lange in Frances back in the eighties. This movie made me remember why I love her! She did layer Big Edie's character with depth of emotion which really moved me. Her final line, "The movie says it all." was perfect!

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 4/20/09 at 12:34am

I was reminded of Frances a few times while watching the film. She's just a wonderful actor. I guess I'm in the group who thinks that Ms. Lange can do no wrong.

Her voice as old Big Edie was so dead-on, it was eerie! I seriously forgot at times that I was watching someone pretend to be Big Edie. She looked, sounded and behaved just like the Edith we see in the documentary.

I also liked Daniel Baldwin...I guess because I have seen photos of the real "love of Edie's life," and Baldwin was much easier on the eye!

[Auggie27]

Posted: 4/20/09 at 7:57am

I look forward to a second viewing. Lange is simply extraordinary in charting the incremental descent into agoraphobia and self-delusion. Her call to NY to bring Edie home is heartbreaking. As is the moment when she defiantly tells the attny's she'll only leave GG feet first.

And to my thinking, no one has sufficiently appreciated the Jackie's visit sequence -- one of Barrymore's finest in the film. Her raw vulnerability and palpable envy -- and oh, the brief moment of touching of Jackie's hair! I was overcome watching her. All of the elements in the story come together in that one scene. Did it happen that way? Probably not (neither did Elizabeth and Mary), but it clearly captured the essence of Jackie's intervention.

The challenges in this material are daunting, but I believe everyone involved pulled it off, brilliantly.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/20/09 at 8:21am

Those weren't lawyers--those were Little Edie's two brothers!

I agree about the Jackie scene, Auggie. There was so much going on behind the dialogue, in Barrymore's eyes, in Lange's eyes and in Tripplehorn's eyes. Trippplehorn was superb in that one scene, in a part that could have been a trap. (How do you play an icon like Jackie O and not disappoint everyone's expectations? She did it.)

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 4/20/09 at 2:57pm

From everything I have read about the Bouviers and Beales, Jackie felt true and deep affection for Big Edie. So I found the scene when Little Edie leaves Jackie and her mother to talk a believable recreation of what could have occurred between the two women. At that moment, both Jackie and Big Edie show real affection for one another and a vulnerability that human beings--not "icons"--generate. I love that scene.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 4/20/09 at 2:59pm

And on that score -- re the Jackie scene and others -- the Alessandra Stanley review in the Friday Times was just bizarre. She literally said that we're only invested in seeing the recreation of the documentary footage.

What this stunning telling of the story offers -- uniquely -- is a nuanced, incremental portrayal of the unseen "middle" of the story, to me, the hardest part to dramatize, because so little happened in terms of incident. The musical (and I'm a fan) takes us from an isolated moment to another decades later. The story is in the contrast. Here, the story is in the seeing the daily escalation of the degredation and increasing symbiosis between the mother and daughter-- that's where this script and production soar and break ground.

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 4/20/09 at 3:17pm

Auggie, I also find it interesting that the most painful (in a good way) parts of the movie are those to which you refer. Perhaps it's because we don't have any other "versions" of them. They catch you off-guard because you are "unprepared" for them.

[StockardFan]

Posted: 4/20/09 at 3:18pm

I haven't seen this yet (we used to have HBO in the basement but I'm not sure if we still do), but I'm dying to. My mom said the documentary is a must as well.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 4/20/09 at 7:37pm

The film even explains the cats in a believable way. Watching Lange gradually take to her bed, shut out the world, and live in the past, via scrapbooks and memorabilia, is devastating. We know where it's heading, and as the vestiges of a connected existence begin to fade away, there's real tragedy. The movie is not a dirge, however. The stuff that's funny -- and they are funny, these women -- is still there. But it's all fully, artfully explored, so that we understand the stakes in their agoraphobic responses to the culture they bar themselves from. Such an intelligent, genuinely thought-out and carefully built telling. I'm very impressed with the screenplay.

Updated On: 4/20/09 at 07:37 PM

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 4/21/09 at 12:33am

"...as the vestiges of a connected existence begin to fade away, there's real tragedy. "

Very beautifully put, Auggie.

[LuvUrBatBoy]

Posted: 4/23/09 at 5:27pm

I LOVED that the black and red scarf that Edie wears for the infamous flag twirling scene is the scarf that Jackie inadvertently leaves behind during her visit. She loses it in the garden and next we see Edie, its on her head.

Im sure that's not historically accurate, but a nice touch nonetheless.