The portrait of a lady

The portrait of a lady (1996), Jane Campion
Based on the novel by Henry James

This is a story about an american woman on the old continent in the late 19th century, who appears to be quite independent and who wants more from life than the traditional role of a woman in those times has to offer.
In the beginning of the story Isabel Archer has three devoted admireres – solid but plain and boring american Goodwood, emotional and caring (but a bit weak) cousin Ralph Touchett, and rich and noble lord Warburton; each of them having some good qualities to offer. She, however, goes for the fourth man in the row - Mr.Osmond, the personification of taste and elegance, who to me lacked any useful qualities except of being a very skilled manipulator. Soon she finds herself in the place she seemed to defy in the beginning – trapped in a marriage that couldn’t have matched her previous ideals at all, and also trapped within herself, getting colder and colder every day. Later she ...