Portrait Films

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.

This short feature film begins with a suicide attempt by Cathy, and then follows by telling her story in flashbacks. Cathy is a neurotic young woman who retreats from cold British parents into an equally uncommunicative relationship with a former teacher who aspires to be a poet. Cathy's self-destructive behavior is presented as a legacy of her (British) family and past.