The House of Mirth
Edith Wharton's world of the idle rich in turn-of-the-century New York is claustrophobic, nuanced, and potentially fatal if one doesn't play all the angles. Gillian Anderson is one who does not play all the angles in her quest for a husband, which ends in her social demise.
The House of Mirth fails on two counts. First, it is solely about the ruination of Gillian Anderson. The film is one painful crucifixion followed by another, and each time, she stiffens her upper lip, and does the right thing, only to be dealt dirty again. Compelling drama can rarely be found in 2 hour plus of degrading one character, while all others inflict the degradation or meekly sympathize.
Second, the actors are not up to the material. Anderson is much too expressive, her facial reactions to slights are often over-the-top, and given the role of a person regularly abused, her bag of tricks is exhausted early. She settles for exhaustion. Others, like Anthony LaPaglia, Dan Ackroyd, Eric Stoltz, Terry Kinney, Elizabeth McGovern, and Laura Linney, fair no better in speaking Wharton's ambiguous tongue. They are blocky and wooden.
I am not unsympathetic to the hurdles of Wharton. But The House of Mirth is an unpleasant blend of bleakness, boredom and bad acting. I suggest Scorsese's "The Age of Innocence."
Grade: D-.
