- Accidental Aesop: Many caregivers who regretted becoming 24/7 caregivers to their parents recommend the film as a cautionary tale to those considering the same decision, especially since Little Edie shares many of the same characteristics of those most commonly pressured into caregiving: single, childless women, especially when the only daughters in the family (Little Edie had brothers, but none offer assistance), without lucrative careers.
- Award Snub: Drew Barrymore won all the big awards for this except the Emmy, where costar Jessica Lange managed to swoop in and take it instead.
- Hollywood Pudgy: Big Edie needles her daughter for getting fat, a sentiment that Little Edie sadly agrees with. She weighs herself and is disappointed with a result of 145 — a perfectly healthy weight for a woman of her height, but far from the physique she had as a dancer and model.
- Values Dissonance: Modern viewers may find a documentary depicting two isolated women who may or may not be suffering from mental illness unsettling and exploitative. Considering the film was made nearly fifty years ago attitudes both towards mental illness and the treatment of documentary participants have shifted considerably. Then again, Little Edie's comments towards the end show much of her behavior may have act for the camera as she saw herself very much as a performer.note
- The Woobie: Both of the Beales. Being abandoned by their affluent family, they're now penniless, living in a once-beautiful but now filthy and run-down mansion, and are at constant risk of getting evicted by the local authorities.
- Little Edie especially, given how she failed and eventually abandoned her dreams of being a performer in order to take care of her old and dying mother, something that's she still held some bitterness over.
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