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From JOHN ANDERSON's list:

3. The House of Mirth: Comparisons between this Terence Davies masterpiece and any Merchant Ivory film are both lazy and fatuous. Davies' adaptation of Edith Wharton's cultural autopsy of Old New York is certainly richly detailed and evokes a sumptuous time. But its essence is gesture, the unspoken communication, the precarious delicacies of lofty social intercourse. And it's about acting: Leading an aristocratic cast, Gillian Anderson is, quite simply, a revelation.

From GENE SEYMOUR's list:

3. The House of Mirth: A passionate, ruthlessly intelligent performance by Gillian Anderson as star-crossed Lily Bart is the centerpiece of Terence Davies' ruminative adaptation of Edith Wharton's novel about cut-throat social climbing at the turn of the last century.

From JAN STUART's list:

8. The House of Mirth: Director Terence Davies eschewed the exacting museum detail favored by a Merchant and Ivory in adapting this most savage of Edith Wharton novels, opting instead to emphasize the venomous core of Wharton's society vipers. Gillian Anderson's Lily Bart took the cake for the year's revelatory performance.

THE END

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