Protraph Lack of good storyline.

UnowPriceless hyped garbage

ScoobyWell Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

SnoopyStyle Catherine Sloper (Jennifer Jason Leigh) was a chubby, bumbling only child. Her mother died in childbirth. Her father Dr. Austin Sloper (Albert Finney) is dismissive of her. He raised her along with her Aunt Lavinia Penniman (Maggie Smith). At her cousin Marian Almond (Jennifer Garner)'s engagement party, the socially awkward Catherine is introduced to Morris Townsend (Ben Chaplin) who seems to be actually interested in her. Her father assumes that Morris is more interested in her inheritance.The younger Jennifer Jason Leigh always brought an innocence to her characters. She sidelines her usual sass in this one and she is definitely no prostitute here. I think her character needs a plainer looking girl but JJL is terrific nevertheless. The acting is first rate from Finney and Maggie Smith. It's a little slow at times but these are compelling performances.

robert-temple-1 This is a masterpiece of film-making, both because of the talented Polish director Agnieszka Holland, and the performance by Jennifer Jason Leigh. This is the best performance by Leigh which I have seen, and I always think she is inspired, but here she truly transcends herself. It is simply one of the greatest cinematic performances of the 1990s. Rarely has an actress so intimately portrayed the most subtle nuances of mood so well. Such an intimate film could only have been directed by a woman, and I don't believe Leigh could have done this for a male director, not even her chum, the late Robert Altman. The performance by Leigh is really as delicate as gossamer, and she spins a transparent silky web of tormented love with such intensity she outdoes even Olivia de Havilland, who played the role before her in 'The Heiress' long ago, and to do that is a miracle! The only way to describe Leigh's performance is to say that she has a 'naked face'. She seems determined to hide nothing. Pathological shyness has rarely been shown so clearly. Throughout the film, Leigh does a progressive striptease of the soul, and she ends up with nothing on but her hard-earned sense of self worth, which cloaks her admirably. Ben Chaplin is a perfect choice for the young suitor, and he mixes goodness and elegance with the desperate grasping nature of the character in an ideal cocktail that is deadly while it is sweet. And Albert Finney surpasses himself as the father so eaten up with bitterness at his wife's death in childbirth that he can never forgive his pathetic daughter for 'killing her', and actively hates and persecutes her for her entire lifetime. Henry James wrote the novel, and he knew a thing or two about people. I once knew someone who had actually met Henry James, namely Dorothy Pound, and I asked her what he was like. (Well you would, wouldn't you?) She said she never had any real conversation with him because he spent all his time talking to Ezra, and they would meet from time to time strolling in Hyde Park, when James always had an attractive young woman on his arm, he would say something pleasant to the Pounds, and then he would be off. I said but what was he LIKE? She said: 'He wore a beautiful red waistcoat.' So there you go. And so does Albert Finney, as a crusty old port drinker with an American accent in this harrowing and tragic tale of intensity in the Square. By the way, the film was shot in Baltimore, and achieves a high degree of authenticity with well-preserved old houses, both inside and out. As time passes in the story, the style of 19th century costumes changes appropriately. Everything is done with finesse. The film commences with the most stunning continuous moving shot, starting in the square, then going up to the front door of the house, 21 Washington Square, then entering the house, moving through it, going up the stairs, and entering the bedroom while a newborn baby cries O.S. and the mother lies dead on her bed with her eyes open wide. Finney lies down beside her and says: 'Now you will be together in heaven with our son.' What a way to open a film! And the final scene of the film, which I must not describe, is equally impressive in a completely different way, with the last shot featuring an incredible lighting effect. Technically, the film is perfect. Holland did not have Wajda as her mentor for nothing, and she is a true artist. I believe this is the finest of all the many excellent films based on Henry James stories, and most of them are so good, that is high praise indeed.

LouE15 (** no serious story spoilers **) This is a very sexed-up dramatisation of the great Henry James' original novel. However, the novel is a masterpiece of nuance and understated psychological drama, and for once I freely forgive director Agnieszka Holland for taking daring liberties: I think it's a better film for it, even if it's not a better adaptation. Ben Chaplin's beautiful 'hero' is ideally cast, a man with just a hint of vain menace to his passionate approaches. And Jennifer Jason Leigh gives an excellent, quietly confident performance as the plain, unloved Catherine Sloper, which will always make me admire her skill and bravery; plus the tension and even heat she helps generate in her scenes with Chaplin feel very real and powerful.In "Washington Square", Catherine Sloper, only surviving child of the formidable, rich and widowed Doctor Sloper, attracts the attentions of a young, handsome and clever man, one Morris Townsend. Catherine falls in love with Morris, and a battle of wits ensues as Catherine's father attempts to expose the young man as a fortune-hunter, and Morris attempts to secure Catherine without paying too high a price for her; while Catherine's dreadful aunt Penniman (wonderful Maggie Smith) meddles everywhere. The battle escalates and the stakes turn out to be painfully high for them all. To begin with, this is Chaplin's and Finney's film, lingering over their witty and pointed exchanges. Finney is masterful in his dry, clever, laconic performance as Doctor Sloper, carrying out beautifully, and to a perfect pitch, the amused detachment of the elegant and rather cruel man in the novel. (For an early Finney performance, check out 1970's "The Gumshoe".) But as the story develops, Catherine's growing confidence and dignity are a marvellous contrast to the increasing bafflement of the once assured and urbane Doctor. This exchange, late in the original novel, between the Doctor and Catherine's kind aunt, Mrs Almond, shows something of the metal of both their characters: "At first I had a good deal of a certain genial curiosity about it; I wanted to see if she really would stick. But, good Lord, one's curiosity is satisfied! I see she is capable of it, and now she can let go." "She will never let go," said Mrs. Almond. "Take care, or you will exasperate me too. If she doesn't let go, she will be shaken off--sent tumbling into the dust! That's a nice position for my daughter. She can't see that if you are going to be pushed you had better jump. And then she will complain of her bruises." "She will never complain," said Mrs. Almond.Any girl who's ever felt ugly, unloved and underestimated by her family or friends, should I think draw moral support from this film. It's very sad, very poignant and real, but manages to deliver out of the rather dismal ending of the book, a really quite positive message about survival, and that rather old-fashioned sounding (but nonetheless important) concept – moral courage. If you enjoyed this intense and well-cast film, I'd highly recommend your reading Henry James' extraordinary and deep novel to fully flesh out the nuances of the story.

tedg Henry James is one of our clearest writers of dense phrases. Reading him feels like swimming through interesting bodies tightly packed in pomegranate flavored honey, desiccated down to smudges on a page, then reconstituted by the eye through memories of that sweet fluid. Like that.It was he who refined the notion of internal, contradictory dialog and sometime untrusted narrative. He's important to what we have in film.I thought of him recently as I am in a patch of good movies. I saw a Louis Malle film last night and the style reminded me of James: economical ambiguity. Clean, but open. And the night before that I saw a film of a novel by George Eliot and I recalled what James said of Elliot — that she had a horrible face, but he fell in love with her — this from a man who never married and whose ability to love is questioned. Reminded me of Catherine from this story.So I sought this out and was surprised to find Jennifer Leigh. She's a sort of female Johnny Depp. Though she is accused of being overlarge in her characterizations, I find her engaging in pretty much every project. This business of exaggeration to be real is tricky business, and excess works in many cases. Visceral commitment trumps delicate reality, because reality IS commitment.Here's the problem: this is a complex book, a braid of four galaxies of urges collected in four beings and squared off against each other. The contrivance is only in the setup: the tragic wheels turn ultra-realistically.The film does not, cannot, reflect this with anywhere near the internal view of the novel. But I liked it. One cinematic trick that used is that nearly every scene has something in the background. It may be an obtrusive object, but is as likely to be a secondary character with some non-secondary trait. Or some activity you see in the back and can't ignore even though the continuity of the narrative is in the foreground.And that foreground is embodied in four quite talented actors, each with a fundamentally different acting style. These actors were selected because their styles contrast with that of the characters. Leigh for instance is one of the most visibly confident actors alive, while Finney who plays the overbearing father, has a style based on obvious fear of being.It isn't quite James. But it is superb, and in its way superior to any Mamet film. The woman making this is anything but clumsy. Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.