WASHINGTON SQUARE (65)

Directed by: Agnieszka Holland

Starring: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Albert Finney, Ben Chaplin, Maggie Smith

The Pitch: A plain, painfully shy heiress is romanced by a handsome adventurer ; but her father is convinced that he's only after her money.

Theo Sez: Probably the best of this wildly over-rated film-maker, even if our heroine does drag herself through the mud desperately rushing after the man who's unworthy of her love (and it only starts raining when things go wrong anyway) ; still, a certain woman's-picture quality clings inevitably to this material, and at least Leigh is a wilder, more tormented presence than Olivia de Havilland. It's closer to THE AGE OF INNOCENCE than to the other recent James adaptations - no ethereal images and feminist revisionism a la PORTRAIT OF A LADY, no lush colours and lurid sex a la WINGS OF THE DOVE, but plenty of gliding camera moves (including a splendid, computer-enhanced opening swoop across the titular square and into the heroine's house) and a general willingness to allow emotions a certain mystery : everything revolves round a single, fateful decision - the father's refusal to give his consent - yet it's never spelled out whether he's doing it out of genuine over-protectiveness, contempt for his plain, graceless daughter, selfishness (so she can keep looking after him), social prejudice and snobbery, a desire for revenge (because her birth robbed him of his wife), a warped love of money, or even a frustrated love for this strange creature he knows he'll never begin to understand (and indeed doesn't, even on his deathbed). The film isn't mixed-up or indecisive, doesn't posit first one possibility then another - doesn't posit at all in fact, merely suggests, making it clear only that the father isn't just a monster, or that Chaplin's suitor isn't necessarily Mr. Right (there's a lovely bit where he's distracted from thoughts of his beloved by the mention of lamb stew with new potatoes), and letting us take it from there. Not much more than good TV, really, but rewarding nonetheless.