SummaryBased on E.M. Forster's novel, Lucy, a young English woman (Bonham Carter), and her aunt (Smith) travel to Florence in the early 1900's. When Lucy encounters a British gentleman in Italy and finds herself falling in love, she must choose between him and her fiancé back in England.
SummaryBased on E.M. Forster's novel, Lucy, a young English woman (Bonham Carter), and her aunt (Smith) travel to Florence in the early 1900's. When Lucy encounters a British gentleman in Italy and finds herself falling in love, she must choose between him and her fiancé back in England.
Ivory glides his players through magnificent Italian and English landscapes and in drawing rooms that breathe authenticity. Two scenes are unforgettable: when the two lovers witness a violent stabbing scene in the Florence piazza; and when the heroine, her mother and fiance encounter three of the male characters in an innocent nude frolic in a wooded pond. [1 May 1986]
I have never stopped loving this film. I can't believe I first watched it as a teen over twenty years ago. Then, on a whim, my mother had brought it home from the rental store. She popped this bad boy in the VCR and after a few minutes, I somehow became engrossed, enamored with the young Helena Bonham-Carter - who plays Lucy - and her wanderings in Tuscany. At her side, the overprotective and fiendishly finicky chaperone, Charlotte (the great Maggie Smith) keeps watch only for the beauty-inspired George (Julian Sands) to plant a nice, juice kiss on Miss Lucy's lips in a field of hillside violets. The scene, scored to the music of Puccini, never fails to give me goosebumps and whenever the sun comes out suddenly from behind a bank of dismal clouds, I cannot help recall this movie and its sensuous cinematography. Yet it's not all romance. There is plenty humour here. George's father, Mr. Emerson (Delholm Eliot of Indiana Jones fame) is a prototype romantic with a case of social awkwardness who makes muddles out of moments while the young Freddy, Lucy's brother back in England likes a good tease and a 'bathe' in the woods. For all fans of this film, the Sacred Lake swim featuring Freddy, George and Mr. Beebe (a young Simon Callow)is the laugh-out-loud highlight. The cast must have had a hoot filming it. Meanwhile, I am always amazed at how Daniel Day-Lewis disappears into roles. When I first watched the film in my teens, I knew him from My Left Foot and Last of the Mohicans. To see him as Cecil, the pompous, pencil-thin twit, you have to shake your head. Yet he pulls it off with such conviction, becoming the awkward cherry on top of this much-cherished masterpiece. The entire film feels like a pleasant and briefly troubling dream. The good parts are wonderful, the sad parts come out satisfying, and the film comes full circle. Love wins. Is that a spoiler? This is truly my favourite of all Merchant and Ivory films. All these years, it still feels like a little miracle to me.
Room With a View, with its genteel cliches and its mouth-puckering social commentary, will absolutely please. It is a gorgeous, glimmering film adaptation of E.M. Forster's sweetest novel, an affectionate study of a party of English gone globetrotting, their Baedekers held close like talismans. [4 Apr 1986, p.29]
Perhaps the primary reason A Room With a View is so involving is that Ivory has cast the film perfectly, and given each of the actors ample room to breathe. Even the characters you're not supposed to like are allowed their moments of vulnerable humanity.
Ivory's version of A Room With a View is impeccably turned out and wonderfully funny once the rhythms are established, which does not take long. The performances are splendid, from Helena Bonham Carter's moon-faced Lucy to the Cecil of Daniel Day Lewis (who can also be seen in a role so different -- the loutish punk of My Beautiful Laundrette -- that it hardly seems possible he is the same actor). As expected, Maggie Smith (as Charlotte) and Denholm Elliott (George's free-thinking father), nearly steal the film. [4 Apr 1986, p.D1]
It's all rather amusing, but after awhile you tire of all the perfect little nuances about characters who seem like prototypes for a certain type of Victorian novel. [6 Mar 1986, p.23(E)]
Ivory checks another book from his library, he loved reading it and we watching it.
A Room With A View
Ivory is setting the mood with nature in the background. One of the most acclaimed adaptation artist of this show business- along with, of course, Aaron Sorkin. Although both of them, has quite an opposite view on how to narrate. Sorkin dashes across the finale leaving the audience whiplashed, while Ivory believes in savouring the dish rather than gulping it down- the director, James Ivory, had had a golden era in his days where he worked aplenty with a long time production partner Ismail Merchant. Almost as if both were on a mission to adapt some of the best literary work and project it on screen with bright colors and juicy texture.
But what comes out surprising to me, is how quirky this film is. Usually, the humor that they follow is either flirty or situational. But in here, with Maggie Smith as a reliable capital, the laugh come in easy, ranging from chuckles to a broad smile plastered in the last act of the film where her nature steers the film into a vital bridge. The intertitle was a smart move by Ivory. The storyline jumps a lot during the film, and highlighting the event somehow helps link all the material in one category.
Helena Bonham Carter, in the lead, is a sight to behold, playing tennis and feeling like that very ball, her precarious behavior on both sides of the court, gives away the result beautifully and without any referee. Aforementioned, supporting her or should I say demotivating her, is Smith in her firm voice that loses the grasp of it, as the film ages. Personally, the intervention of Carter by Smith in her hotel room defines the film for me, Smith negates everything Carter leans towards, barrs her in unconvincing views of hers and even manages to close the window or block A Room With A View.
Production Company
Goldcrest Films International,
National Film Finance Corporation (NFFC),
Curzon Film Distributors,
Film Four International,
Merchant Ivory Productions