Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
In 19th century New York high society, a young lawyer falls in love with a woman separated from her husband, while he is engaged to the woman's cousin.
Scorsese's lush adaptation of Wharton's novel is elevated by Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Winona Ryder delivering nuanced, layered performances, and by Michael Ballhaus's ravishing cinematography that turns period opulence into a kind of suffocating cage. The plot, while faithfully rendered, is essentially a story of repressed longing constrained by social convention — compelling but not propulsive. The ending is bittersweet and restrained, true to Wharton's vision but deliberately muted in emotional payoff. Novelty is moderate: the film is distinctive in applying Scorsese's kinetic sensibility to a corseted drawing-room world, a striking combination, but the romantic-triangle-in-gilded-cage framework is a well-worn genre.