It was a strange coincidence that the much-anticipated TV movie of Grey Gardens and former Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl's fourth memoir, Not Becoming My Mother, should come out in the same week. While the differences are obvious - one's the story of fallen aristocracy, the other of mid-century malaise - both deal with thwarted female ambition, make one wonder whether fragile psyches can ever triumph over adversity, and, most of all, explore how these questions impact on mother-daughter relationships.

Most everyone - at least, readers of this site - knows the Beales' story: the New York socialites, mother and daughter, whose grandiose showbiz ambitions gave way to a life of delusion and squalor, made all the more dramatic by their family connection to Jackie O. The HBO film, while it broadens the focus, doesn't tell us much we didn't already know about their decline. To anyone who's read one of food writer and editor Reichl's memoirs, this one will not contain shocks, either: her neurotic, frustrated mother is a constant, infuriating presence in her books, her mental instability and scorn for her daughter's career a constant cross for Reichl to bear.

This memoir, title aside, is more sympathetic; Reichl explores the broken dreams that made Miriam Reichl the woman and the mother she was: her wasted education, her thwarted desire to become a doctor, her suffering through what Reichl terms "the worst possible time to have been a middle-class American woman." Reichl's writing is always curiously indifferent to whether the reader likes her, and this is no exception; despite her newfound understanding of her mother's struggles, the ambivalence is the memoir's third character. Miriam's disdain for Ruth's career choice may come from a desire to see Reichl do something more - and from a wish to protect her from crushing disappointment - but it's still cruel, and there were many mothers of the same generation who were able to muster far more support.

Then too, the main question we're left with at the end of the book is, how much was her? It's the same question that dogs Grey Gardens. Could Edith Beale have sung professionally, if not mired in the world of upper-class marriage? Or was it this very life which allowed her to cherish her illusions? Could her daughter have become a musical star without her mother holding her back, or were these women too damaged from the outset? Of Miriam, Reichl writes, "Was she crazy, or was she crazy because she had nothing to do?" As one reviewer puts it, "At times, Mim's mental health seems so fragile that the focus on her thwarted career seems misplaced: You wonder if she could have found satisfaction in any field or had condition, perhaps biological in origin, that would have caught up with her in any job."

Whatever the truth, the one certainty is that the daughters get sucked into the mythology; a daughter has to live her mother's reality, however damaged or damaging that may be. Reichl breaks free, Little Edie (of Miriam's generation) doesn't - but their mothers continue to haunt them, both with the realities and the realities they made. So, how do you break away? If you believe Reichl, the only way is to physically separate yourself from a personality that can dominate you; certainly the Beales show the danger of the alternative. Distance - not just physical, but emotional - is critical. You need to see a parent objectively. In Reichl's case, this meant a lot of anger, a lot of distancing, reducing her mother to a caricature. And then, ultimately, having the maturity to see her as more. In a sense, breaking this hold, as she tells it, is almost like the stages of grieving. And when one considers how domineering these personalities are, that makes a kind of sense. Together, this is an odd Mother's Day roundup, for sure - but certainly a potent one.

Ruth Reichl's Memoir ‘Not Becoming My Mother' – An Apple Falls Far From the Tree [One Minute Book Reviews]
"Not Becoming My Mother [New York Post]
Not Becoming My Mother [Amazon]

Us's version, which hits newsstands tomorrow:

Our version:

Us Weekly Pushes Envelope With Mock Cover [MediaWeek]

Aside from the Edies' banter, the two aspects of the film that are most memorable are the Grey Gardens home itself, and Little Edie's fashion sense. In this clip, roduction and costume designers explain how they so accurately recreated the line between the past and the present.

Constructing turbans out of fabric and brooches was Edie's signature.

The costume designer on the film took great pains to exactly replicate some of Edie's outfits. (More on that, here.)

But even before she lost her hair, she was into hoods and hats.

She probably got this from her mother.

Even her younger brothers enjoyed ladies hats.

But that's probably because the parties that Mrs. Beale threw at Grey Gardens while Mr. Beale was working weren't confined by gender roles.

Or heterosexuality.

Speaking of coming out, Little Edie debuted in this dress.

The purpose of her debutante ball was to start the search for a husband. But Little Edie didn't ever want to get married. She said, "All I want in life is a dance partner."

Ultimately, her only dance partner would be her mother.

Way back when, her mother had a music partner: Mr. Gould. But Little Edie insisted that he didn't "satisfy her sexually." He was gay, so she was probably right.

Before she moved back to Grey Gardens, Little Edie spent a few years in New York City, modeling and trying to make it as an actress.

It would depress her when she was forced to return to East Hampton.

But she never let that reflect in her garments.

Big Edie, however, took to muumuus.

Little Edie thought she was the cat's pajamas in this.

Cats' poop, however, is not as fashionable.

After her mother died, Little Edie finally got to realize her dream of having a night club act.

But we still like thinking of the two of them together.

Related: 'Grey Gardens': It's Style, Darlings [LA Times]

Almost everything uttered by the mother and daughter in the Maysles' 1975 documentary, on which HBO's film is based, is quotable, but much of it came off as the delusional ramblings of two women suffering from folie à deux. But by digging into their backgrounds in the new film (starring Jessica Lange and a lispless Drew Barrymore), their motivations and bon mots become much clearer, and often brilliant. Like when Little Edie said, "The hallmark of aristocracy is responsibility." Her parents were pressuring her to get married, as soon as she turned 18, to a man who could secure her future and provide her with the same kind of lifestyle in which she'd been raised. Her father Phelan told her mother that marrying off Little Edie was her job and her "sole responsibility."

Little Edie had a pipe dream of entering show business and didn't want her ambitions to be stifled by marriage and children, the way that her mother's were. However, Big Edie's philosophy on life was a little shrewder, essentially telling Little Edie to marry for money, which will give her the freedom to do whatever she wants. This shed a whole new light on the conversation the two had in the documentary, in which Big Edie told her daughter that she's "not free if [she's] being supported, to which Little Edie replied, "I thought you said you're not free when you're not being supported."

The film shows how and why Little Edie gave up her life in Manhattan (which included an affair with married man Julius Krug, Secretary of the Interior, played by an aptly cast, bloated Daniel Baldwin) to live with her mother at Grey Gardens, as well as the breakup of Phelan and Big Edie's marriage of convenience, a situation that became increasingly inconvenient for Big Edie when she refused to scale back her lifestyle and burned through her Bouvier inheritance. She and Phelan never legally divorced — although he did eventually get a "fake Mexican divorce" — and Big Edie lived off the meager $150 allowance her ex-husband provided for her until his death, when all of his money was left to his "new fake wife."

The Beales' lack of financial stability was evident in the documentary, but no one really knew why they didn't just sell their massive East Hampton estate, as the land alone would've provided plenty of money for them to live comfortably. Here, Big Edie explains her reasoning, when her sons are pleading with her to be more financially responsible in the wake of Phelan's death.

After the county raided their home, Jackie O (Little Edie's first cousin and Big Edie's niece) finally stepped up to the plate and paid for cleanup and renovations to the dilapidated mansion. The relationship between Jackie and Little Edie was a tense one, due to Edie's jealousy over Jackie's celebrity. Her acrimony toward Jackie (played by dead-ringer Jeanne Tripplehorn) is seen here:

Perhaps the biggest question fans of the documentary have had is "What the fuck happened to Little Edie's hair?" It turns out that she had some kind of anxiety condition since she was young, which caused her hair to fall out. After her father died, she was left bald.

The best part about HBO's Grey Gardens is that — like the documentary — it shows these women to be nonconformists who would rather cut themselves off from society, than have to give in to its rules. They'd rather forfeit luxury than their dreams, even if it meant that they were just dreamers living in squalor. Finally getting to see the limited choices that life presented to them, their eccentricities now seem seem relatively sane.

It was also fun to see recreations of how the infamous estate looked before they let it go to pot.

And of course, there are plenty of Little Edie's fashions on display. (A gallery of Grey Gardens fashion is coming tomorrow.) And while this isn't the most revolutionary costume, I think it's the best costume for the day, you understand.

The film (which is not a musical) will fill a lot of holes in the Beales' story for their many fans, as it follows little Edie as she tries to make it as an actress in Manhattan, and how/why she returned to Grey Gardens in the '60s. It will also show how the family dealt with the assassination of JFK (Jackie was Edie's first cousin), the pair's relationship with the Maysles brothers, and perhaps most importantly, how the house became so run down. It's definitely a must-see for GG superfans who want to know more about these women. According to HBO's schedule, it premieres on April 18.

Here's a shot of the real little Edie for comparison:



Related: HBO Announces April Premiere for "Grey Gardens" Film [Yahoo]

Jerry, who once lived with the Big Edie and Little Edie Beale in their dilapidated East Hampton mansion for four years, now drives a cab in New York City. In Maysles' new documentary, Grey Gardens: From East Hampton to Broadway, which aired last week, Jerry speaks fondly about his experiences with the women and expresses amazement at the success of the original film and its adaptation on Broadway. Grey Gardens: From East Hampton to Broadway also includes the 82-year-old Mayles discussing how Grey Gardens the movie was originally panned in the New York Times as being exploitative of two mentally ill women. In the clip below, Albert explains how offended the Beales were at that summation, and produces a letter that Little Edie wrote to the New York Times — which was never published — defending herself, her mother, the Maysles brothers, and the film itself.

No, the importance of Little Edie is that her variation on a towel dress is representative of the can-do spirit that we're all being urged to adopt now that we're in a Recession. What she wore — the countless bizarre "costumes" and outfits and mix-and-matched pieces — was cool, yes, but what made her a true Recessionista (as it should be used) was that she used limitation as a jumping-off point and did more with that than had she had a huge clothing budget. Did she sew? Re-use? Reinvent? Yes! But even more important, she dressed without fear, for self-expression. She reminded us of the redemptive powers of clothing and how little they have to do with frivolity. There is nothing of the clotheshorse in Grey Gardens: the point is never acquisition, but the actual purpose of the clothes themselves. When designers took inspiration, it was literal: replicating a bejeweled sweater turban or a skirt made from safety pin trousers. But it was the spirit of her dressing that's a help to the rest of us. Nowadays we're inundated with tips for essentially how to manufacture the illusion of an unchanged lifestyle, and that's not tenable. Little Edie, from madness or wisdom, didn't do that. She created a new reality for a new set of circumstances.

It's easy to see why fashion types are enchanted with the famous eccentric, but still a bit jarring. When the Grey Gardens musical first hit the stage, suddenly Little Edie wasn't just the property of those of us who'd long loved the cult Maysles documentary — and maybe wrapped sweaters around our heads in high school: everyone loved her! A film of cut scenes was released. Philip Lim's 2007 show, Marc Jacobs, the Olsen Twins and Italian Vogue were all competing for her favors. Rhapsodized Isaac Mizrahi in 2006: "The way that we now make mistakes on purpose comes from Edie Beale. I'm still and always trying to match her sense of the absurd, her playfulness, her sense of the drama of clothing." The stylesmith for the newest Grey Gardens stage production, Alex Jaeger, had this to say in Sunday's Washington Post:

Her fashion sense comes out of a deep need to be creative. And she was fabulously creative. These outfits, she made them out of whatever she had. As strange as they may be, there was a lot of thought put into them, and she would make 10 or 12 a day. She would change her clothes all day long.

But all of this is really beside the point: Little Edie was poor — very poor — and she was obviously not well. Said Simon Doonan, seldom a slave to fashionable bromides, in May: "[Said my friend Deb] who works in a psychiatric hospital and has a front-row seat at the unwitting fashion show that is mental illness. 'Walk around any in-patient unit: Lots of people are sitting around with things tied around their heads, just like Little Edie. They are not making a fashion statement; they are trying to block out the voices in their heads.'"

It should be said that Little Edie was probably more concerned with covering a bald pate, but there is something exploitative about mining what is essentially tragedy for inspiration (while crying homage), but whereas the Little Edie fashion moment of the past two years had me cringing, I feel like now her true fashion moment has come. Because the times in which we live are unprecedented, an unprecedented role model is called for; we're left not with a scant pile of threadbare basics that need to see us through the next half-decade, but, rather, the detritus of petty decadence: trendy, cheaply-made things never intended to last, that now reproach us from our overflowing closets. In this, Little Edie is a great help. She made the clothes work for her, remembered that they were nothing more than fabric — not a season, not a style, only raw material. She had nothing to do with Fashion, but a lot to do with everyday clothes and the people who wear them. People embraced her a few years ago because they were jaded, hungry for novelty, and sick of perfection. We can embrace her now not ironically, not patronizingly, but as a true role-model, and a boon for our times.

Standing on Fertile Ground for Creative Expression [Washington Post]

Related:
One Flew Over the Couture's Nest[New York Observer]
Little Edie, Big Style [New York Daily News]

"Edie's Choice" Velvet Cuff
S-T-A-U-N-C-H!

Rhinestone Horse and Jockey Brooch
I'm pulverized by this latest thing!

Rhinestone Cat Brooch
I adore kitties.

Rhinestone Cat Brooch
But raccoons and cats become a little bit boring. I mean, for too long a time.

Grey Gardens Bridal Collection Cuffs
Edie never married, but she had a proposal of marriage from Paul Getty. Remember Paul, the richest man in the world?

Rhinestone Bow Brooch
This will keep your scarf on your head on a windy day.

Opera Glasses
It's much easier to view the numbers on the scale with a pair of these.

Earlier: Retro Fashion: Edie Beale On The "Best Costume For The Day"
Edie Beale Would Not Approve Of Drew Barrymore Playing Her In A Movie
Drew Barrymore As Edie Beale In The Best Costume For The Day

Portrait of Edie as a young woman. Mr. Wainwright did that. He was an artist from a very good family. He was in the Social Register. He did it in the solarium of Grey Gardens.

[Toronto, November 13. Barrymore image via INF]

How do you think she measures up compared to the real thing? Little Edie Beale in her 20s:

[Top image: Toronto, Canada; October 22. Image via INF]

[New York, October 18. Image via Splash.]

Earlier: Marc Jacobs Channels 'Grey Gardens'? We Beg To Differ

[Images via AP]

Earlier: Retro Fashion: Edie Beale On The "Best Costume For The Day"