Despite being born to an important family, Lily Bart is an impoverished young woman who struggles to maintain any form of lifestyle that resembles that of her rich society friends.
She entrusts what little money she has in a man that promises to make her great gains on the stock market.
[1] Megan Rosenfeld of The Washington Post praised the casting, "For once, Geraldine Chaplin's basically expressionless face serves her well, and her performance is perhaps one of her best.
For once she goes beyond the insipid, catching the confused – and surprised – torment of a young woman who can neither succeed within the restraints of her society nor use courage or imagination to escape from it.
Rosenfeld also praised Hall for directing the film with "careful attention to period detail" and that he "proceeds subtly but surely down the path of Lily's misfortune."