Grey Gardens, The Movie

After watching the new HBO movie "Grey Gardens" last night, I have to say that while Lange and Barrymore were outstanding as Big Edie and Little Edie, the movie itself just didn't do it for me. I think it's because I had seen the original documentary a few years ago and this new production was pretty much just an embellished remake of that. But no way could it capture the same eerie state of denial and desperation that the documentary portrayed.
Apparently I wasn't alone in my fascination with the Beale's. "Grey Gardens" went on to become a Broadway musical and now, a movie. I think people are intrigued by the notion that these upper-crust women could start out so refined and end up so utterly pathetic, living their lives in the flea-infested squalor of a single room in a dilapidated house that was once so grand and elegant. I admit that at times while I was watching the documentary, I got so uncomfortable, I had to turn away. But then, in the next instant, I was drawn right back into it, to the raw exposure of the disappeared dignity of the once-aristocratic, once-glamorous, once-beautiful, once-hopeful mother and daughter. It was very sad.