01
The Heiress
Why this pick
A beautifully controlled Henry James adaptation centered on an emotionally vulnerable young woman, paternal cruelty, inheritance, and the painful growth of self-possession.
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
MOVIE1997 1h 55m USA
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Movies like
Washington Square
Drama
CINEHUNCH / THE NEXT FRAME
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
If you loved Washington Square, try these.
01
02
The Age of Innocence
Why this pick
Its exquisite period surfaces contain a similarly devastating study of social obligation, family pressure, repressed feeling, and love constrained by wealth and convention.
03
The Piano
Why this pick
For Washington Square’s intimate, feminine emotional perspective and quietly fierce struggle for autonomy, rendered with tactile period detail and accumulating emotional force.
04
The Wings of the Dove
Why this pick
Another nuanced James adaptation: stately but tense, with inheritance, romantic calculation, and fragile people navigating motives that are never as simple as they appear.
05
The House of Mirth
Why this pick
A ravishing, melancholy portrait of a woman hemmed in by moneyed society, where minute social humiliations and restrained performances carry tragic weight.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
A little about the film.
A prologue introduces us to Dr. Austin Sloper (Albert Finney), a New York City doctor and resident of a large house on Washington Square Park whose wife dies in childbirth, leaving a daughter, Catherine (Jennifer Jason Leigh), to be raised by her father. As a child, Catherine is overweight, clumsy, and untalented; however, she is also a sweet, affectionate child. She adores her father and tries hard to please him, but he considers her a disappointment and treats her with ironic condescension. His thoughts are still much occupied with his beloved wife and with a promising son who died before Catherine was born, and he privately – but bitterly – resents his only surviving child for causing his wife's death.
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
The people who bring it to life.
Jennifer Jason Leigh
Catherine Sloper
Maggie Smith
Aunt Lavinia Penniman
Nancy Daly
Maid
Albert Finney
Dr. Austin Sloper
Ben Chaplin
Morris Townsend
Judith Ivey
Aunt Elizabeth Almond
Jennifer Garner
Marian Almond
Robert Stanton
Arthur Townsend