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Limited Release: Dec 22, 2000; Rated: PG; Length: 140 Minutes; Genres: Drama, Historical, Romance; With: Gillian Anderson, Anthony LaPaglia and Eric Stoltz
A
Scott Brown
Scott Brown writes the Hit List for EW and is a frequent contributor to National Public Radio -- he has the tote bag to prove it
''If obliquity were a vice, we should all be tainted,'' deadpans Lily Bart, Edith Wharton's famously failed practitioner of strategic obliquity. Deftly played by Anderson (whose shallow, snared-rabbit breathing communicates more terror than the last three seasons of The X-Files), Lily emerges here as the tragic objet d'art Wharton intended her to be, a turn-of-the-century socialite-cum-''spectacle'' who only grows more feverishly luminous as her plight worsens. Her best attempts to land a rich husband are sabotaged by a slightly overdeveloped soul, which drives her ineluctably toward the chilly, penniless Selden (Stoltz), a dispenser of flirty sophistries like ''Your genius lies in converting impulses into intentions.'' Though at first the dialogue seems indigestible in the actors' mouths, director Terence Davies gently ushers his cast (and his audience) into smaller and smaller rooms, until all those corseted anxieties sweat right through the fine fabric. ''I am a useless person!'' sobs Lily as her shrinking social circle asphyxiates her; and, God bless her, she's absolutely right.
Posted Jun 01, 2001
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You Might Also Like
- Video Review The House of Mirth | Scott Brown
- Movie Review The House of Mirth (Dec 22, 2000) | Lisa Schwarzbaum
- Ask the Critic Which pop-music legend deserves a big-screen bio? (Dec 22, 2000) | Owen Gleiberman
- Hot Topic Here's the year's first Oscar controversy (Apr 21, 2000) | Lisa Schwarzbaum
- Hot Topic Henry James and Edith Wharton go Hollywood this fall | Rebecca Ascher-Walsh
- Movie Review How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (Oct 03, 2008) | Lisa Schwarzbaum
