A tragic love story set against a background of wealth and social hyprocrisy.

Lily Bart is twenty-nine and very beautiful, but is flawed by her upbringing. She needs a wealthy husband to maintain her precarious foothold in the elite world of the New York of the Belle Epoque. It is a world of vast wealth and moral bankruptcy. In conforming to social expectations, she ignores her chance of happiness with the man she loves.

Her quest for a husband comes to a scandalous end when she is accused of being the mistress of wealthy married man. The society which once cultivated her now rejects her and she starts to slip down the social ladder. Redeemed by her recognition of the falseness of the life she used to lead, she declines to use her secret weapon to achieve her original goal.

Life for Lily becomes impossible and she moves step by step towards her own inevitable personal tragedy.