Summary
In the opulent, claustrophobic drawing rooms of the 1920s, Mabel Wilton, a socialite of fading luminescence, wages a desperate war against the ticking clock of her own relevance. Her existence, a curated performance of vanity and superficial charm, is violently disrupted when her daughter, Jeanne, returns from the cloistered world of boarding school. This arrival isn't merely a domestic inconvenience; it is a memento mori that Mabel refuses to acknowledge. The tension escalates into a harrowing psychosexual drama as Edmund Lamont, a charismatic but fundamentally hollow fortune hunter and Mabel’s current paramour, detects a more lucrative and youthful quarry in Jeanne. Lubitsch orchestrates a devastating collision of maternal jealousy and predatory opportunism, where the daughter becomes the unintentional executioner of her mother’s romantic delusions. The narrative descends from the heights of Jazz Age frivolity into a grim courtroom reckoning, exposing the rot beneath the gilding and the tragic collateral damage of a man’s insatiable greed.
Synopsis
A frivolous middle-aged socialite is suddenly put upon to have her daughter live with her. Her conniving paramour dumps her for her daughter, leaving her young boyfriend crushed.
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