Welcome to my Criterion challenge for 2026! I started this blog last year but I’ve struggled a bit with getting into the routine of writing so I’ve decided for this year, I’m going to complete the annual Criterion challenge from Ben over on Letterboxd, and I’ll cover it here. Spanning 52 categories spilt into weekly instalments, I’ll be growing my physical Criterion collection in an efforts to dually expand my writing and my movie vocabulary, published right here at the start of every week.
This week is focused on 20th anniversary releases, the films that Criterion distributed in 2006. I’ve chosen to cover The Beales of Grey Gardens and subsequently its predecessor, the 1975 instant cult classic documentary. Both films take an observational lens to the lives of Edie and her mother Edith Beale’s eccentric lives in the titular Grey Gardens.
In a previous life, the Beales were socialites with influential family, being notably related to the former U.S. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. However, the co-dependent relationship between them, as facilitated by Edith, put a strain on the family unit, leading to the eventual separation of the previously wealthy Phelan Beale from his wife Edith. Many events transpired here which can probably be answered a lot more interestingly with a quick deep dive on YouTube than I can put into writing here, but eventually after a short stint in New York, Edie was once again dragged back to be with her mother, in the estate in Grey Gardens. This was the last thing left to them by Phelan, who at this point was flat broke.
In October of 1971, police raided the property and deemed it unsafe for human inhabitance, finding cat litter flooding the house and the violation of numerous local ordinances. Quickly reacting to this, the better off members of the Beale family paid to have the property renovated, settle taxes and to give the women an income to live on. In due course, brothers Albert and David Maysles came to meet the women, and financed the project, fascinated by the lives the two led.
What results is piercing, a documentary so unconventionally captivating- particularly for the queer community, as people begin to identify with little Edie in her attitude as the star of her own life. The two, particularly little Edie, with a coterie of catious admirers, make their way into pockets of culture, being referenced on Gilmore Girls, spawning a surprisingly successful broadway musical, and even getting a TV movie from HBO Max starring Drew Barrymore.
As for my own thoughts, I think the simultaneous portrayal of two women in need of intervention while also being full of individuality and genuine character (particularly during this time period), is the thing that captures the audience the most. The experience of the Masyle’s, having already directed many rather successful documentaries before this, gives them an impartial directorial lens. The presence of a camera and the two brothers no doubt excites little Edie, but you do get a real sense of authenticity from her and her mother, despite their inherently performative nature. This is not only good practice for a documentarian, but most importantly allows for the real genuine discourse that arose following the film, criticising the social structures that allowed the Beales to slip through the cracks of wider society.
The first instalment follows more of a narrative than the second, mostly due to the background information about the Beale’s past and the fight it often causes between the pair as they recount events differently. Grey Garden’s extensive inclusion of the bickering between the two women serves almost to satiate the shock factor that the audience expects of the documentary. This is where the additional footage stands out as Albert notes in his introduction- it can focus on the sharp observations Edie has, and how it is only more discerning when paired with everything else we have already seen of her.
I really do love documentaries because they let us explore the way other people live in a way that fictional movies simply can’t, and Grey Gardens is the embodiment of this. ‘Sonder’ or the realisation that everyone is living out days that are as complex as their own at every moment is a newly coined word as of 2012. Many young people have fondly weaseled into their vocabulary to describe that feeling of curiosity about other’s lives. Grey Gardens is the gentlest reminder of how quickly perceptions of family, women, religion and art shifts in our society through this observation of others lives. It is equally an essential in the development of sub-genres within documentaries, expanding the ways it is thought about, and made as an art form.
Both films are available on YouTube, but this transfer is definitely one of the better I’ve seen for a film of this age. This and my obvious love for both films makes the purchase well worth it for me, and it’s a Criterion that was on the easier side for me to find second-hand. There’s a lovely introduction from Albert on the Beales of Grey Gardens, with not much else in the way of special features given that the additional footage is realistically a special feature of its own. The Criterion release for both films is the only in-print physical editions of the films I could find.