The House of Mirth, directed by Terence Davies, is a
sumptuous Edwardian morality tale of a beautiful but penniless young woman on
the prowl for a husband but unwilling to lose her own sense of morality. In this case, it is not all’s fair in love
and war.
Gillian Anderson, stunning in 1906 wasp waist dresses, plays the tightly corseted and restrained American Lily Bart, who loves working lawyer Lawrence Selden (the handsome and
reserved Eric Stoltz). They flirt, they talk of love, they kiss, they pretend indifference, but they both
realize that what Lily wants will only come from a rich man who offers marriage.
When a servant from Selden's hotel mistakes Lily for her friend Bertha, Lily buys the letters, the key to
make her fortune. Instead, her sense of love for Selden (I assume) stops her from using
them.
Bertha and her husband invite Lily to join them on their yacht for a Mediterranean cruise. Bertha conducts an affair, but Lily refuses to acknowledge it. In a surprising reversal of fortune, Bertha throws Lily off the yacht, and she becomes a social
pariah to her friends.
One friend's husband proposes that he will help her invest money in return to an alliance. She refuses. The wealthiest man of the film proposes to her, is rejected,
and then rejects her when her situation changes for the worse and she says she would marry him. Eventually
forced to work like the middle class Lily abhors, she reaches the end of her
rope and must beg for charity from those few who could help.
The House of Mirth feels often highly stilted—the dialogue
carries the sense of an upper class comedy of manners, but there is no laughter in the tragedy. Edith Wharton shares much with Henry
James in her sense of what the high society does to the outcast. Being an
outcast means remaining one to the end--even if one have lived one's life with a
sense of morality. This is a story also of thwarted love--reminds me strongly of James' short story, The Beast in the Jungle.
The film uses lavish locations but often feels like a limited budget Masterpiece Theatre production.
The acting is the key here. Anderson is quiet
moving in her portrayal, and she and Stoltz offer some wonderful love scenes. As
Lily suffers, the depth of Anderson’s performance also grows. Numerous times we watch her hide her defeats from others but each becomes more devastating than the last. Only a couple of times, does the script allow her to show the pain she feels.
Laura Linney does
a great turn as Bertha Dorset, the best friend turned enemy. Elizabeth McGovern
brings the same sensibilities she shows in Downton Abbey. Dan Aykroyd is
passable as the lecherous husband, but Anthony LaPaglia imbibes his wealthy
Rosedale with a range of emotional reactions to Lily and her situation.
The House of Mirth (2000) **** (DVD)
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