Fanny Trellis, Bette Davis, is introduced in 1914 as a pampered beauty whose social calendar buzzes with admirers. She adores her brother Trippy Trellis, Richard Waring, and she will go to great lengths to keep him out of trouble. When she discovers that Trippy has misappropriated money from his employer, Job Skeffington, she resolves to protect him by marrying the lovestruck Job Skeffington, Claude Rains. This union is forged not out of romance but to shield the family from scandal, and Fanny’s actions are driven by a mix of loyalty, self-preservation, and the complexity of her own ambitions.
Trippy’s reaction is immediate and telling. Disgusted by the arrangement and harboring prejudice against Job’s Jewish background, he leaves home and volunteers to fight in the Lafayette Escadrille during World War I. Job, meanwhile, does love Fanny, though she remains largely distant and self-focused, treating their marriage as convenient at best. She becomes pregnant with Job’s child, but the relationship remains strained and transactional. The story then follows the toll of Trippy’s death in France, which leaves Fanny bound to a loveless marriage that persists largely for the sake of the child.
As the war recedes into memory, Job and Fanny’s life at home becomes a tangled portrait of duty and desire. Job’s genuine affection competes with Fanny’s restless social life, where she continues to charm a rotating quartet of suitors and younger lovers, while Job finds a form of solace in the company of his secretaries. The strain of the marriage intensifies when Fanny begins to realize that her daughter, the child she once despised for tying her to this life, genuinely loves her father. This realization compounds the emotional distance between Fanny and Job, and she ultimately chooses to divorce him, a decision she rationalizes as protective of her own happiness, even as it wounds their child.
Meanwhile, Fanny’s daughter returns from Europe amid the rising threat of Nazism, and she marries Johnny Mitchell in Seattle, a union that signals a new chapter for the family as events in Europe begin to darken the world around them. Fanny’s life progresses with the same vanity and social maneuvering that defined her youth, and a later dip in health—diphtheria—ravages her appearance, forcing a stark confrontation with aging and the fragility of beauty. In denial, she hosts a party inviting many of her former lovers and their wives, a social debacle that shocks the attendees and underscores how much she has changed.
A final, cruel turn comes when a former beau makes what appears to be a sincere marriage proposal, only to withdraw when he suspects she is no longer wealthy. This moment leaves Fanny alone with her maid, Manby, nursing dignity and pride in a retreat from the world she once owned. The narrative pivots when Fanny’s cousin George unexpectedly brings Job back to her home. The news is devastating: Job is penniless again after the Nazis have stripped him of almost everything, and he is blind from torture endured in a concentration camp. The reunion is painful and tentative, as Fanny hesitates before descending the grand staircase to greet him.
When she finally enters the parlor, Job moves toward her, stumbles, and falls. Fanny consoles him, guiding his arm as they ascend the staircase together, and she murmurs to the maid, “Mr. Skeffington has come home.” In that quiet, charged moment, George reminds her that she has never looked more beautiful than when she is loved. The scene crystallizes a hard-won truth: true beauty resides in love, not in conquest or status, and Fanny’s awakening comes with the rekindling of her partnership with Job. The film closes on this fragile, redemptive note, a portrait of a woman who must choose between vanity and devotion, and who ultimately learns that love is the only lasting measure of worth.
> "A woman is beautiful only when she is loved."
