There is the matter of a debt to Gus Trenor. The vise that closes on her in the final scenes is inexorable.Īnd yet she could have prevented her fate. She is prepared for two things in life, to be a rich man's wife or to do piecework at poverty wages.

'They will forgive a woman almost anything except the loss of her good name.' As Lily finds her credit in society running out, she turns to the resources she has left-or thinks she has-and we see finally that she is defeated. 'Men have minds like moral flypaper,' Lily observes. After that, Lily is all but done for, although her descent is gradual. She all but insists Lily accompany them on their yacht in the Mediterranean, and then gets herself out of a tight spot by a subterfuge against Lily so cruel and unfair, it almost rips the fabric of the film. Bertha flaunts her infidelities, and George is too timid, or well-mannered, to rise to the bait. Lily's social world includes George and Bertha Dorset ( Terry Kinney and Laura Linney). So, too, in a different way, does Gus Trenor ( Dan Aykroyd), playing one of those rich men who offer investment advice to desirable women as if they have only benevolence on their minds. Rosedale guesses something of Lily's financial situation, and makes her an offer she refuses. For a woman to go unaccompanied to a man's room is not proof she is a tramp, but might as well be. He knows that only bachelors live in the building. She goes to tea at Selden's house, and is seen leaving by Mr. People are getting tired of me.' But her life is not unpleasant until a chain of events destroys her with the thoroughness and indifference of a meat grinder. She lives in a world of lunches and teas, house parties and opening nights, where she is no longer a fresh face: 'I've been about too long.

Is there nothing else she can do? Apparently not her upbringing has equipped her for no trade except matrimony, and even Lawrence Selden ( Eric Stoltz), her would-be beau, observes dispassionately: 'Isn't marriage your vocation? Isn't that what you were brought up for?' Lily is alone in the world, except for a rich maiden aunt, from whom she expects an inheritance. The movie tells the story of Lily Bart ( Gillian Anderson), a respectable member of New York society in her late 20s, who keenly feels it is time for her to be married. And so they speak in code, and people's lives are disposed of with trivial asides and brittle wit. Perhaps its characters fear that if they ever really spoke their thoughts, their whole house of cards, or mirth, would tumble down. This is one of the saddest stories ever told about the traps that society sets for women. Like the Edith Wharton novel that inspired it, Terence Davies' 'The House of Mirth' conceals rage beneath measured surface appearances.

The house of mirth review