Washington Square

This film is the second effort to bring to the screen the 1880 Henry James novel of the same title (the first was The Heiress in 1949). Set in 1850 among the aristocracy of New York, Washington Square examines the inhibitions of Catherine Sloper (Jennifer Jason Leigh), the only child of wealthy Dr. ...more

After the critical lashing she received for Total Eclipse, Agnieszka Holland takes another, more successful stab at the period piece, this time adapting Henry James for the screen. Too many films based on classic literature risk brittleness in their attention to historical detail, but Holland and first-time screenwriter Carol Doyle present James' world as not so very different from our own. The tangled financial, familial, and romantic motivations that drive the plot would work in almost any ...more