Riveting performances from an all-star cast highlight this passionate tale of a young heiress who must choose between love or money. Jennifer Jason Leigh is Catherine, a lonely young woman in search of happiness … until she is swept off her feet by the handsome Morris Townsend (Ben Chaplin). Suspicious of the young man’s true intentions, however, her controlling father (Albert Finney) threatens to disown Catherine if she follows her heart and marries against his wishes! You’re sure to find this timeless story both powerful and entertaining.
The idea for Henry James’s novel Washington Square (1880) began as a bit of family gossip shared across the table at a fancy dinner party. Fanny Kemble, a famous British actress, told James the true story of her brother’s designs on a plain but wealthy girl. The young woman’s father disapproved of the match and threatened to disinherit his daughter if the two married. Once convinced of the father’s conviction, Fanny’s brother ended the engagement, leaving the girl broken-hearted.
James altered the time and place of the story to mid-nineteenth-century New York City using memories of his maternal grandmother’s house in the tony neighborhood of Washington Square to infuse the story with realistic detail. This was a time when Victorian notions about a woman’s place in society were colliding with the fledgling sensibilities of the women’s suffrage movement. A timeless story of a woman’s desire to please both her father and the man she loves, Washington Square follows Catherine Sloper’s remarkable transformation from a meek wallflower to a steadfast woman true to her own convictions. – The Big Read
Starring Jennifer Jason Leigh, Albert Finney, Maggie Smith.