What is the legacy of inherited wealth? Did we inherit our parents’ values along with the money? Sue Gilbert returns to explore the wealth and lifestyle issues she first portrayed through the eyes of her elderly parents in her film Greenaway (1982), set on her family’s private island in Connecticut.

In Greenaway, her parents were starkly frank about the meaning of wealth, the relevance of a servant class, and other topics such as the immanent decline of the American democracy into socialism and dictatorship. Twenty-seven years later, Gilbert compares her parents’ viewpoints to those of their children and grandchildren, viewing each topic through a multigenerational lens.

Whereas the elder Gilberts observed their lives and surroundings from a fixed perspective typical of their era (both were born in 1907), we see the next two generations wrestling with both sides of the coin of wealth, including seldom-discussed issues of deserving, class, envy and hiding. We also glimpse the stewardship that wealth necessitates, including circulating it among those less fortunate.

Beyond Greenaway explores a range of diverse topics such as marriage and divorce, belief in God, drug therapy, and politics. In exploring common themes, we come to care for the family as ordinary people sharing their struggles, regardless of their advantages. Told from an insider’s perspective, Beyond Greenaway offers an unusual snapshot of a largely hidden subculture of the American population.