Starring: Gillian Anderson, Dan Aykroyd, Eric Stoltz, Anthony LaPaglia
Director: Terence Davies
Rated: PG
EDITH Wharton is often referred to as the United States’ Jane Austen.
Her novels portray the time and place of New York society at the turn of the century in the same way Austen catches Regency England.
The House of Mirth is the third Wharton novel to be adapted for the big screen. The first was The Age of Innocence, starring Daniel Day Lewis and Michelle Pfeiffer, then came Ethan Frome, starring Liam Neeson and Patricia Arquette.
All three films capture the slow pace, manners and social restrictions of the upper class American society within which Wharton moved.
The ironically titled House of Mirth, however, is the darkest tale of this trilogy.
Lily Bart (Gillian Anderson) will soon be past a marriageable age. She moves in the right circles for a “respectable match” but she is known to want a wealthy man because she loses heavily at cards. Lily is dependent on the generosity of her aunt to maintain her social position. Lily’s suitors include the rich and boring Percy Gryce (Pierce Quigley), the newly-moneyed Sim Rosedale (Anthony LaPaglia) and her true love, the less wealthy lawyer, Lawrence Seldon (Eric Stoltz). In this marriage game, timing is essential and Lily’s timing is out. She misses her chance, gets into debt, is falsely accused of an affair with the married Gus Trenor (Dan Aykroyd) and is disinherited. What can a social girl do?
The House of Mirth chronicles how Lily’s pride obscures her judgment.
This film is a visual feast. If you like period drama, meticulous costumes, perfect art direction and atmospheric lighting, go and see this film. There is no hurry to tell the story, so director Terence Davies enables the audience to befriend Lily. Anderson’s performance is a tour de force. She is in almost every scene of this long film and brings style and grace to the role. Anderson, literally, embodies this role, for her posture tells the story as much as her words. Her back is straight, head poised and demeanour stiff in every public scene.
Privately, it is a different matter. You easily forget Anderson hunts aliens on the X-Files in her spare time. The supporting cast is equal to the demands of their roles with Chicago Hope’s Eric Stoltz and Australia’s Anthony LaPaglia putting in fine performances.
There are some annoying aspects to this film. Eleanor Bron’s Aunt Julia is allowed to be too Gothic and the scenes on the yacht are obviously shot in front of a blue screen in a studio that cannot adequately double for the Mediterranean Sea.
But these are quibbles and it is refreshing to recommend a film that is a tragic drama, a restrained romance and has no sex, nudity or coarse language.
