[Grey Gardens, the] portrait of a complex love-hate relationship, is compelling, but exposing these two peculiar, rather pathetic women to public scrutiny is somehow unseemly. The filmmakers invite us to look down on the Beales (who are, by birth and experience, superior to most of us) and encourage us to interpret our amusement at their eccentricities as sympathy. By any standards of charity and decency, Grey Gardens is opportunistic, voyeuristic, and exploitative of its vulnerable subjects. However absorbing the film may be, I suspect we are all a bit poorer in spirit for having seen it.

Joel E. Siegel, "'Grey Gardens'," in Film Heritage (copyright 1976 by F. A. Macklin), Vol. 11, No. 3, Spring, 1976, p. 35.