Good story, Not enough for a whole film

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

This is a story that has always bothered me from the first time I saw the original 1949 movie ("The Heiress") many years ago to the recent Broadway revival. It is interesting to note that Judith Ivey who plays the younger sister of Albert Finney here played the older sister in the 2012 production (played by Maggie Smith here). And being a look at polite American society, this can be compared to "Downton Abbey" from the opposite side of the Atlantic, with Dan Stevens playing the young man squiring around Catherine Sloper in that production as well. Those who only know Dame Maggie Smith from "Downton Abbey" and the "Harry Potter" movies will enjoy her here in a change of pace role as a really kind matron who anxiously longs to see her niece (Jennifer Jason Leigh) get together with the poor but charming Morris Townsend (Ben Chapin) even though her doctor brother (Finney) is dead set against their even seeing each other socially.The real conflict here is the relationship between father and daughter, a complicated and resentful one. Father hates daughter because his beloved wife died giving birth to her, and he was never able to relate to her emotionally. While Catherine has inheritance from her mother's side of the family, her father makes it clear that she will inherit nothing from him if she does not do his bidding, which means not marrying Chapin. While the character of Catherine is supposed to be plain, Leigh doesn't fit the bill. The problem with her performance is that Catherine seems quite hard, while DeHavilland's Catherine was fragile and only plain by the fact that she wore a very severe hairstyle that was not flattering to her face. That made her seem more suppressed, and her inner beauty was more obvious. Leigh also makes her character much more clinging, so ultimately, she is not as likable, closer to the unattractive heroine of the musical "Passion" than to what the original play and movie had her to be.As Dr. Austin Sloper, Albert Finney is excellent, a combination of social mores, hidden hatred of his daughter, and in conflict with himself between his coldness and his Hippocratic oath. Smith, as always, is the consummate scene stealer, making her Aunt Livinia one you'd love to have over for cocktails and babysit the kids. It makes no sense that Leigh's Catherine would blame her aunt for Morris walking out on her. It is nice, however, to see the great Maggie playing an older character who is filled with strawberry ice cream in her heart instead of ice water in her veins and a wisecrack on her tongue. Even without the witty dialog she has gotten to say on stage and in films throughout her career, Smith delivers each line as if she was spreading butter on corn-Sweet, a bit salty and delicious to the ear.As for the alterations I mention, there seems no other reason to do this than to feminize the narrative. They took out the "What's good for the goose is good for the gander" lesson of rejection by altering the plot twists towards the end. In the original versions both on stage and on screen, you can tell that Catherine will go on with her life whether being a spinster or not, but something tells me here that Leigh's Catherine will end up like "Great Expectation's" Miss Haversham and be one of the most feared and disliked characters around. It is the twist of the ending which always bothered me, but in this version, I saw no need to change it.

(** 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.

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.

Holland's Washington Square was a great movie. I thought that the actors portrayed James's descriptions of them very well. The film is much more faithful to the original Novel by Henry James than its predecessor, The Heiress (Dir. by William Wyler), which was heavily based on a stage play of Washington Square. Although there is a feminist slant put on the movie, which is not really seen in the novel, this is a fair interpretation made by the director. It is easy to see that Catherine's defiance of her father's wishes (or demands, if you prefer) could be a precursor to the feminist movement that began later in the century. Both films are a must see, but most importantly, read the novel. For a 19th century book, it's very easy to read!