Along with her younger cousin, Grace Stepney, she lives with her wealthy aunt, Julia Peniston, who gives Lily a small allowance.

Trenor tricks her into leaving the opera and accompanying him to his home, where he tries to kiss her, claiming that Lily is not playing a fair game when she accepts his money but refuses him her attentions.

When Lily arrives home, Julia refuses to lend her the money to repay the $9,000 she received from Trenor.

Lily had arranged a later appointment with Selden while at the wedding, and she counts on his love for her to overcome her foolish mistakes.

Lily and George Dorset converse on deck while a young man reads poetry to Bertha.

Next morning, George enters Lily's cabin, accusing her of knowing about Bertha's indiscretions with the young poet.

She puts the check in an envelope she addresses to her bank, and writes another for Gus Trenor, resolving her massive debt, and then takes a fatal dose of the laudanum.

Terence Davies cast Gillian Anderson because of her resemblance to the women in John Singer Sargent paintings.

[10] The site's critics consensus states: "Despite being a period piece, The House of Mirth's depiction of social cruelty still feels chilling and relevant for today.

But this has been opened out into a substantial, well-upholstered picture with more sinew and power than almost any other period drama of recent times.

"[12] In Slant Magazine, Ed Gonzales wrote "Besides his remarkable ability to render a profound sense of past in all his films, Davies can uncannily map out the emotions of his characters via his mise-en-scène.

"[7] The Washington Post's Michael O'Sullivan wrote "the real revelation here is The X-Files' Anderson, who plays Lily with subtle gradations of emotional depth unexpected from someone who has made a career out of deadpan.

When we first meet Lily, her character is all radiant subtext: Her smoldering carnality -- buried beneath a veneer of social-climbing pleasantries -- seeps out in every cigarette she and Lawrence share ... Later, Anderson gives a tour de force as a woman who's at the end of her rope without knowing how she got there.

"[13] A reviewer in Sight and Sound commented that Davies preserved the astringent spirit of Wharton's "beady-eyed view of the early 20th-century's nouveaux riches", "handsomely designed" by Don Taylor and "lovingly shot" by Remi Adefarasin.

[5] He commented that Gillian Anderson is "not merely plausible but exceptionally powerful, and [..] makes Lily's final self-lacerating encounter with Selden horribly real",[5] adding that the film's "finest quality is its typically quiet attentiveness to tone of voice, posture, nuances of facial expression - Anderson proves herself a grand mistress of that most elusive look, the crestfallen.