In our own time, divorce and its consequences seem more banal than scandalous, but James’s tale of a young girl, “rebounding from racket to racket like a tennis ball or a shuttlecock” as her parents pursue their own narcissistic ends, still has the power to trouble and to shock. In their brilliant, haunting adaptation of “What Maisie Knew,” set in 21st-century Manhattan, the directors, Scott McGehee and David Siegel, and the screenwriters, Nancy Doyne and Carroll Cartwright, take liberties with the Master’s plot while remaining true to the “design” that he somewhat boastfully explained in his preface to the New York Edition of the book.

James relayed an adult drama of marital spite, sexual jealousy, meanness and weakness entirely through the point of view of a child, who could not possibly understand everything she witnessed. “What Maisie Knew” is really, though not grammatically, a question about the character’s understanding of what the grown-ups around her are doing. The reader knows more than she does, but doesn’t always know what she knows, and the shadow that falls between our knowledge and hers is where the pathos of the matter lies. James: “I lose myself, truly, in appreciation of my theme on noting what she does by her ‘freshness’ for appearances in themselves vulgar and empty enough. They become, as she deals with them, the stuff of poetry and tragedy and art.”

And now cinema, in spite of the lingering superstition that James’s writing cannot be translated into film. To play Maisie (an entirely credible name for the 6-year-old daughter of a pair of pretentious New Yorkers), the filmmakers have enlisted Onata Aprile, a wide-eyed, dark-haired pixie whose quiet watchfulness is perfect for the role. Wisely, Mr. Siegel and Mr. McGehee do not try to coax too much acting out of her. There are no displays of precocious insight or histrionic innocence. Maisie says, in every case, more or less what a child would and tries to please the wayward grown-ups around her even as she deflects their efforts to make her feelings answer their needs.

Her parents are Beale (Steve Coogan), an art dealer, and Susanna (Julianne Moore), a musician. Their fights quickly and inevitably lead to a breakup, after which Maisie becomes a pawn in a bitter game. Each wants her in order to spite the other, and also as evidence of virtue. Their declarations of love are, in the moment, perfectly sincere, but also woefully inadequate.

Beale, a variation on the jokey, jerky guy Mr. Coogan can play in his sleep, fills his daughter’s life with presents and promises, and then vanishes on business trips for months on end. Susanna showers Maisie with manipulative affection and then wanders off into bouts of self-pity or creative abandon.

For a parent, watching these monsters has a twofold effect. On the one hand, you may be forgiven a frisson of self-righteous superiority, since whatever your own shortcomings, you are surely above such blatant acts of deceit and neglect. On the other hand, since Beale and Susanna exist on a recognizable continuum of parental behavior, you can’t help feeling implicated.

“What Maisie Knew” lays waste to the comforting dogma that children are naturally resilient, and that our casual, unthinking cruelty to them can be answered by guilty and belated displays of affection. It accomplishes this not by means of melodrama, but by a mixture of understatement and thriller-worthy suspense. Every Hollywood hack knows that nothing grabs an audience’s emotions like a child in peril, and the directors make expert use of this wisdom, deploying Nick Urata’s score and sly tricks of framing and focus to create a mood of disorientation and dread. What Maisie learns is that nobody will protect her.

And yet what we see, just over her head, might best be described as a sex farce. After the split with Susanna, Beale takes up with Margo (Joanna Vanderham), who had been Maisie’s live-in nanny and who remains the only trustworthy adult in her life. Susanna, more out of calculation than affection, takes up with Lincoln (Alexander Skarsgard), a studly young fellow without much ambition. These stepparents in effect share custody of the girl, and they begin to look like an impromptu, unofficial family.

James’s book ends on a sly, perfect note of ambiguity: “She still had room for wonder at what Maisie knew.” (“She” is Mrs. Wix, a character who has been folded into Margo in the film). The viewer of “What Maisie Knew,” devastated and relieved by this intimate tale of betrayal and perseverance, is left in a similarly divided state of confusion and amazement, with ample room for wonder.

“What Maisie Knew” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Not in front of the children!

What Maisie Knew

Opens on Friday in Manhattan.

Directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel; written by Nancy Doyne and Carroll Cartwright, based on the novel by Henry James; director of photography, Giles Nuttgens; edited by Madeleine Gavin; music by Nick Urata; production design by Kelly McGehee; costumes by Stacey Battat; produced by William Teitler, Charles Weinstock, Daniela Taplin Lundberg and Daniel Crown; released by Millennium Entertainment. Running time: 1 hour 38 minutes.

WITH: Julianne Moore (Susanna), Steve Coogan (Beale), Alexander Skarsgard (Lincoln), Joanna Vanderham (Margo) and Onata Aprile (Maisie).

By A. O. SCOTT

Published: May 2, 2013