drew barrymore as little edie.

film still courtesy the guardian (with a nice little blog article, too).

this hbo movie came out in the middle of 2009... i just borrowed it from the library after having watched the original maysles documentary just a few weeks ago, i thought it would be fitting to watch the drew barrymore/jessica lange feature while it was still fresh in my mind. starting from the opening scene of drew -- little edie -- dancing in the foyer of grey gardens, i knew her performance was going to be amazing.

and seriously -- the STYLE! they duplicated the scenes from the original documentary to the T -- the clothes, the set, everything. i can't forget the little brown sweater vest with the light blue flowers... the way she wears it as a vest, then wears it as a scarf. classic edie. i love it.

and not only that, but when they show the scene of her describing her "costume" in the garden -- how she shows the skirt that's strangely pinned on one side, showing her pantyhose and some pants underneath... it's so weird, but she's edie! it's perfect. and the fact that the maysles had their own little part in this movie -- their brief, intrigued, "well, let's do this" sort of attitude -- it gave just that little extra bit of showtime for them... when they were so obviously interacting with the beales in their documentary, but never really played a part.

drew played little edie so faithfully. jessica lange was fantastic, too; the combination of the two was great, which is precisely what was needed to make this a good film. and it's good.