The House of MirthTerence Davies' sumptuous adaptation of the celebrated novel by Edith Wharton, set among the upper echelons of early twentieth-century New York society, shares with Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence (1993) an almost anthropological fascination with the manners and mores of its characters and milieu.
In a superbly nuanced central performance, Gillian Anderson (The X Files) embodies the character of Lily Bart - the marked heroine of Wharton's story - as a woman torn between social propriety and personal freedom.
Eric Stolz, Dan Aykroyd and Anthony La Paglia are impressive in supporting roles, with Laura Linney perfectly cast in the role of the calculating Bertha Dorset.
