"For the sake of being modern"

If you are as enamored of this movie as I am, you will enjoy The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty which is taken in part from the life of twenties film actress Louise Brooks. As a teenager, Louise travels from Wichita to New York to take part in a summer dance program. Since she's only fifteen, her parents hire a chaperone to accompany her. Cora Carlisle, whose own sons are leaving for college, takes the job.  

On the train, when she's not thwarting Louise's attempts to flirt with strangers, Cora remembers another train journey. As a young child, she traveled from an orphanage in New York to her adopted parents' farm in Kansas. She hopes by visiting the orphanage as an adult she can discover some information about her birth parents. In the process, she discovers that while she can't charm her way through life as Louise can, she can rely on a different set of feminine wiles.

Louise embodies all that the older generation finds shocking. As the chaperone, Cora finds herself espousing a moral code she can't quite articulate. But as the novel progresses through the twentieth century, Cora finds herself questioning the conventional attitude towards contraception, race relations, and sexuality.  

Ironically, near the end of her life, Louise finally finds contentment in a life off-screen. Cora, however, is cast in the role of a lifetime as she and her husband keep up appearances as a happily married couple - even though they have both found love elsewhere.