The Europeans

The Merchant Ivory Collection

This entertaining story from a delicious early novel by Henry James takes place in a New England Arcadia that stands for everything beautiful, pure and good. Into this Eden comes a sophisticated European brother and sister who turn up unexpectedly on the doorstep of their staid American cousins, the Wentworths. The fortune-hunting Eugenia (Lee Remick) and her high-spirited brother Felix (Tim Woodward) turn this Puritan world upside down. The film concludes with three betrothals, like a Mozart opera. But Eugenia has been too clever and must return to Europe as empty-handed as she came.