Edie Bouvier Beale and her mother, Edith, two aging, eccentric relatives of Jackie Kennedy Onassis, are the sole inhabitants of a Long Island estate. The women reveal themselves to be misfits with outsized, engaging personalities. Much of the conversation is centered on their pasts, as mother and daughter now rarely leave home.

Edith and Edie Beale are eccentric subjects who offer a generous amount of themselves in Grey Gardens, an inquisitive and nonjudgmental exploration of the isolated socialites' lifestyle.