I don’t have cable t.v., but I’m sure many of you watched Grey Gardens on HBO on Saturday. As I mentioned before, I’m not entirely sure I want to see it.

If you saw it and liked it, go ahead and tell me why in the comments. If you didn’t watch it because you’re feeling a little over-protective of the original documentary, tell me why you feel that way? I’m sure I’ll watch it at some point soon, but I can’t really say I’m looking forward to it.

I suspect the new film honors the Beals beautifully, but perhaps it’s done in a way that’s more about the way that we want the story to look, rather than the way it did. Sure, documentary film is never without bias, but the 1976 Maysles brothers’ movie gave us such an unflinching look at something so private, raw, and disturbing. It wouldn’t surprise me if the HBO movie Hollywoodizes the story. Frankly, I’m not sure I  need to feel any more respect for these bizarre, reclusive, dysfunctional people than I already do.  However funny and intriguing and fascinating their story is, this is a story of women in trouble. Their inability get out of that situation is just sad. It makes me wonder: where the hell is everyone else when this is happening?

It’s possible that the Beals were mentally ill. Edie says in 1974, “”To my mother and me, Grey Gardens is a breakthrough  to something beautiful and precious called life.”  She’s talking about the very film in which she and her bedridden mother are shown arguing while feral cats urinate on the carpet and raccoons nest in the attic.

Because I spend my time buying old things, I’ve seen a few “estates” owned by people who just let things go and cease to care about their home and safety. Let me tell you this. Decay isn’t particularly pretty when you’re walking through the detritus of years of neglect and extreme disrepair. It’s nasty and it’s just plain sad.

I’m sure that some of you live in places (or know of places) where there’s a recluse living on property that should be condemned. Seeing stuff like that just leaves me feeling so bothered. I’m sure you feel the same way. You’re both mad and sad at the same time. Do you know what I mean?  How did someone let this happen? Why doesn’t the family or someone… anyone…do something to help? Which sometimes leads to–why don’t I just buy this place and fix it up?

In my mind’s eye (because that’s the only place the new film exists), the Grey Gardens dramatization/biopic would succeed if it can do something to de-stigmatize the mentally ill and maybe shed more light on what we can do to intervene and help people who let their lives turn to shit. The romantic view of “eccentrics” happens all too frequently on the big screen. That’s a Hollywood cliché that turns my stomach even as I revel in watching the Grey Gardens documentary. There is a part of me that doesn’t crave more of the Beals’s story as it’s “made real” by Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange. I am not sure what could make the Beals any more intriguing than they were. Theirs is a profoundly beautiful tragedy.

Happily, I report that the gardens themselves have been lovingly restored.  There is a photo essay you can see in the New York Times here.   After nearly two decades of loving care, artist Victoria Fensterer has transformed the grounds of the estate into something truly wondrous.

What beauty this is.