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Wealthy lawyer Newland Archer is engaged to sweet socialite May Welland in 1870s New York only because he is in love with May's cousin, a woman separated from her husband.
The movie seems a departure from Scorsese's turf of violence and lower class men, but Wharton's depiction of rigid milieu with its restrictive mores and emotional repression bears resemblance to Little Italy's male subculture.
It also shows that while tradition can devolve into a conformity that stifles compassion and love, acting in mere self-interest can ultimately be just as destructive.
Mr. Scorsese has made a big, intelligent movie that functions as if it were a window on a world he had just discovered, and about which he can't wait to spread the news.
July 22, 2006
Rolling Stone
Spurning Masterpiece Theatre twittiness, Scorsese cuts to the primal passions of Wharton's tale.
July 22, 2006
Lawrence Journal-World
A stylish but fairly forgettable Scorsese effort
May 27, 2005
Film4
Gorgeously shot, deceptively genteel period drama. Day-Lewis, Ryder and in particular Pfieffer give performances as polished as the silver and the result is slow, subtle but irresistibly powerful.
I don't know any of those [prior] versions, and I wonder how (which means I doubt that) they avoided the snare that Wharton unwittingly set for her adapters, the snare that, for all his gifts, caught Scorsese.