washington square be a flat and shabby adaptation of the short novel by henry james . indeed and the novel be very good and but far from the level of james masterpiece . moreover it simple and eventless story seem unsuited to make it into a film ( although william wyler and with his the heiress and give in 1949 a beautiful version of the novel ) . anyway and the movie completely betray the spirit of this work of the great american writer . in the novel and the heroine catherine be shy and not very attractive and somewhat clumsy and but nonetheless she be a sound and intelligent young woman and and she not as naive a it may seem . her attachment for her father be dignify and respectful and with no morbid side in it . along three quarter of the movie and catherine ( jennifer jason leigh ) just seem to be mentally retarded and poor thing . in the last quarter and she suddenly ( and incredibly ) become intelligent and aware of her dignity a a woman and and all that . the director agnieszka holland have add two vulgar scene to the story . the first and when the nervous child catherine have and well and trouble with her vesica . the second scene and when we see on the background a sort of open air brothel and with prostitute take their customer behind tent and and so on . nothing could be more contrary to the spirit and artistic ideal of henry james . it be notorious that the writer be extremely decent and demure even for the standard of the victorian age . i defy anyone to find any coarseness anywhere in the thousand of page of james huge literary production . i really be particularly annoy by these two scene . yes and i know that a director need reasonable freedom in the screen adaptation of a novel . but if a director utterly ignores or misunderstand the art of an author ( here henry james ) and i do not see the point of use his work to make a bad movie . the acting be adequate to the movie represent poor and flat and in spite of the talent of albert finney and maggie smith . washington square be definitely a non recommendable film .