The House of Mirth

Snubbed: Gillian Anderson 

Introduced on Saturday, March 2, by Michael Koresky

Dir. Terence Davies. 2000, U.S. 140 mins. 35mm. With Gillian Anderson, Eric Stoltz, Dan Aykroyd, Eleanor Bron, Anthony LaPaglia, Laura Linney. Davies’s magnificent, faithful adaptation of Edith Wharton’s 1905 novel is a sumptuous triumph all around, yet its beating, battered heart belongs to Anderson, who miraculously evokes Wharton’s tragic heroine Lily Bart. Anderson’s Lily is a social butterfly whose position in turn-of-the-century upper-class New York City proves precarious after her financial situations take a turn for the worse—and she refuses to compromise her virtue or her romantic idealism. Davies’s adeptness at verbal wit and aching melancholy are on grand display throughout The House of Mirth, one of the late British master’s very greatest films, and Anderson’s performance was one of the most acclaimed of the year, but perhaps the X-Files Emmy-winner was devalued by the Academy as “just” a TV actor for their taste (a distinction that used to exist). Nevertheless, her work— a study in precisely maintained appearances that gradually crumble—is one of the cinema’s great embodiments of the ironic toll human virtue takes on the body and the soul. 

Tickets: $15 / $11 senior and students / $9 youth (ages 3–17) / discounted for MoMI members ($7–$11). There is a $1.50 transaction fee per ticket for all online purchases. The cost of admission may be applied toward a same-day purchase of a membership. 

Order tickets. Please pick up tickets at the Museum’s admissions desk upon arrival. All seating is general admission.