THE SEASON OF LILLIAN DAWES (2002)

F. Scott Fitzgerald couldn't have done a finer job of conjuring up the 1950s martini-swilling, tea-at-the-Plaza, white-linen-suit world of Gabriel Gibbs, a 17-year-old orphan who finds himself living with his sophisticated older brother when he's hurled out of boarding school for smoking a cigar. Living on the periphery of a teetering upper-class family -- the kind whose ancestors sat for Sargent -- Gibbs becomes enamored with the mysterious Lillian, a free spirit who darts in and out of society and Gabriel's life. Mosby shows an extraordinary gift for detailing the mind and heart of a teenage boy -- she neither underestimates nor patronizes the kind of passion that is only possible at that age -- while never sacrificing the sharpness of the other characters or plot. A