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the audience applauded

People are voting emotionally.

I wanted to but couldn't!

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Lily Bart (Gillian Anderson) lives in Manhattan at the turn of the 20th century. From a fine old family, she nevertheless has very little money. The big bucks, instead, belong to Lily's aunt and Lily makes her home with this lady. It is assumed that when the aunt passes away, Lily will inherit. Meanwhile, Lily hobnobs with the cream of society, a mostly married circle of friends that includes Mrs. Bertha Dorset (Laura Linney) and her husband, single gentleman Lawrence Selden (Eric Stolz), and Gus Trenor (Dan Ackroyd) and his wife. Naturally, our Lil must keep herself looking smart, so her aunt complains about clothing bills, and Miss Bart secretly plays cards for money. This last would upset her aunt, if she knew, so Lily tries to cover her tracks, as she does get an allowance. But, all too soon, her debts are high and she must set her cap on making a rich marriage, even though she may be harboring an affection for Mr. Selden. Its all for naught, you see, because Selden is not rich, either, but a lawyer climbing the ranks. A good match would be Percy Gryce, as far as money is concerned, but he is a bit priggish. When Lily flirts with him at a party, she sleeps late the next day and misses church. Away goes Mr. Gryce, only to marry another wealthy lady. Another rich gentleman, Sim Rosedale (Anthony LaPaglia) likes Lily and being Jewish, needs an blueblood wife to advance in society. However, since her heart is not in it, she turns him down. Learning of her desperation, Lily's friend, Mr. Trenor, says he will invest some of her money to increase her spending power. Too late, Lily discovers that he expects romantic favors and she refuses him. Bertha becomes jealous of Lily, too, so the circle of friends cast Lily from the group. Hoping for her aunt's money, Lily is stunned to learn she is mostly cut of of the will. What will she do to survive? This is a classic tale by Edith Wharton, one of America's best writers ever. Wharton came from the high society of old money New York and she knew it through and through. Lily is a most tragic figure in that she is beautiful, witty, and charming but that is not enough without money. Alas, she also throws away her chances for stability at every turn. Anderson gives a sensitive and wistful performances as Lily while Linney, Ackroyd, Stolz, LaPaglia, and all of the others do great work, too. The costumes and sets are to die for while the direction has a careful, studied touch that aids the tale. No, don't watch this one if you are not having a mirthful week. But, if you want a good cry or are looking for a film of substance, choose House of Mirth.

In Old New York, a lovely and exquisitely refined young woman without money, friends or family is slowly ground down and destroyed by the city's uncaring elite.Edith Wharton's classic novel works solely because Lily Bart is such a gentle, refined, and sensitive personality. Time after time, she does foolish, cowardly things -- but she is never coarse, cruel or vulgar. That is what sets her apart from the rest of New York society, and that is why she must die.Unfortunately, director Terence Davies and his star Gillian Anderson both fail to grasp Lily's essential charm. The Lily they create is dumber, lazier, weaker, and greedier than her literary prototype. Each classic scene is redone in a way that makes Lily less a sensitive soul and more a luckless tramp. Instead of being an angel fouled by gossip she's simply a sexy girl caught with her hand in the cookie jar.In the book when Lily and Lawrence Selden chat it's purely a meeting of kindred spirits. They enjoy each other's company, certainly. But there's no real sexual tension, let alone heavy breathing. In the movie Lily all but devours Selden with her eyes, and the effect is comic rather than tragic. Poor Lily looks so heated and rumpled leaving his flat that it's entirely reasonable for outsiders to get the wrong idea.The same problem mars Lily's relationship with the women in her set. In the book Lily falls in with cruel Bertha Dorsett only because she's naive and innocent. In the movie it's obvious that Lily longs for the luxuries and pleasures of being a perpetual house guest, especially when Bertha and Bertha's husband George are paying the bills. Watching Lily moan with pleasure on the massage table while sly Bertha promises her an extended Mediterranean cruise totally underlines the wrong point -- that Lily is weak and easily tempted, not refined and easily misled. And it's even more ridiculous when Lily's shown gorging herself on fruits and ices, resting in the shade while sly Bertha plants rumors in the ears of the gentlemen that she's easy and available! In the book Lily's story is excruciatingly sad. In the movie it's sleazy, tawdry, and often unintentionally funny. All in all this film is a classic example of what happens when a modern director completely fails to understand the spirit of classic literature.

The House Of Mirth is a substantial, well-upholstered picture with more sinew and power than almost any other period drama of recent times... a brilliant film from a great British director. A cash-strapped single woman (Gillian Anderson) in early 20th-century New York fails to marry for love or money, and finds herself stuck with a scandalous debt that threatens to bankrupt her entirely.The film is a stunning adaptation of Edith Wharton's novel about a doomed social butterfly, elegantly crafted on a limited budget, and built around a piercing lead performance of Singer Sargent-esquire luminosity. It makes harsh points about an even harsher social order, and makes them feel fresh.

The House of Mirth is in some ways a remarkable period film, the story of a young woman's gradual decline from the spotlight of 1905 New York society to humiliation and defeat a couple of years later. Gillian Anderson turns in a compelling performance in the lead as this young woman, Lily Bart. But, as has been noted by others who've read Edith Wharton's novel, this is not a fully successful literary adaptation.The book is over five hundred pages long. To deal with such complexity, the writers have sliced it into tableaux, which give an imperfect idea of the narrative, and many details of character and incident are oversimplified, including the omission of a key figure, Gerty Farish, the humble friend of Selden who represents what Lily fears becoming herself. Still, various characters appear lacking in context. The book is just too complicated to be turned into a feature film. Despite the fact that certain scenes and dialogue are followed quite literally, a great deal of explanatory material has of course been lost. Along with this blunting of the richness of the book, the cast isn't strong enough, and in some places is disappointing. The lovely look of the film, its very authentic locations and costumes, can't make up for these two huge flaws. Davies said he picked Gillian Anderson because she looked like a Sargent painting and at times she does, but unfortunately she has to act; she's not quite capable of conveying all the nuances of Lily's personality, and besides, is not the dazzling and delicate beauty Wharton clearly describes her as being. At times she looks almost plain. Further, the screenplay fails to convey that Lily was not just unlucky in cards and unwilling to do what was necessary to pay her debts but also a lavish spender on clothes and baubles and enormously spoiled.As the all-important Lawrence Selden, the respectable but not wealthy enough lawyer Lily loves but feels she cannot marry, Eric Stoltz is flabby, a washout. All he's good at is looking smart in his period costumes and wavy red hair, and smoking cigarettes. Selden is far too important a character to be so weak: there needs to be strong chemistry between him and Lily and he needs to be compelling and magnetic not vacuous and pretty.For a novel about society, the film is at times badly off on details of manners, which must be conveyed first of all by good casting. Even if this is his "finest role to date" (Hoberman), Dan Ackroyd is nonetheless inadequate. Gus Tremor is a man of high society who is rich, fat, and boorish. Ackroyd as Gus is adequate only for the fat and boorish part; he doesn't suggest a person to the manor born. One of the embarrassing ironies is that while Sim Rosedale's Jewishness, central to the novel and an aspect of Wharton's own conventional anti-Semitism, is suppressed and converted by vague implication into Italianness with the casting of LaPaglia, an obviously Jewish actress is introduced, in the anti-Semitic climate of this narrative, in the person of Eleanor Bron to play Lily's aunt. That might be justified if the actress were good, but Ms. Brun's performance is a crude caricature. She plays Mrs. Julia Peniston, Lily's Aunt as a wicked witch rather than the disapproving prude of the novel. Something seems off in the conception of Lily's cruel nemesis, Bertha Dorset. Laura Linney, who has the role, is a good actress. But in her key scene she seems more gleefully spiteful than coolly calculating, not an appropriate attitude given the gravity of her own situation. This is a weakness in Davies' direction, surely one of many. He captures the big "arc" of Lily's decline effectively and there is drama and shock in Lily Bart's rapid decline as dramatized by Ms. Anderson; but do we ever understand it? As on other occasions when wonderful novels have been adapted into films that capture the outlines but miss the core, we can only recommend: read the book.