A Room with a View (1986)

The first major Merchant Ivory motion picture won multiple awards primarily for visual elegance, stunning period wardrobe. and a glorious score. The characters are portrayed as they are in the EM Forster novel but unlike the 2007 Masterpiece Theater A Room With a View the storyboard is not. Many famous performers are featured among them a short and memorable appearance by Judi Dench but in my opinion Maggie Smith changing the fcus of the role of Charlotte as EM Forster wrote her is the finest. The Forster them of deceiving oneself to fit in with the rules of one's society ruins one's chance at happiness is perhaps better portrayed in the tacked on ending of this film than in the Forster novel.

E. M. Forster's charming story, Merchant and Ivory add gorgeous Tuscan cinematography, lush opera music, and a cast of talented British actors. Even a skinny-dipping scene is done with enough class that the movie got away with a PG rating (though that probably wouldn't happen nowadays!). In short, Merchant-Ivory makes it look easy—and this ease has led to charges of their films being dull and middlebrow, as well as to many imitators.But this stereotype of "a Merchant-Ivory film" fails to mention just how vivid and hilarious "A Room with a View" actually is. With scene-stealing actors like Maggie Smith as a prim, passive- aggressive chaperone and Daniel Day-Lewis as a self-centered young man whose every gesture tells of his fastidious rigidity, a rich vein of humor runs through the film. The movie also delights in putting its heroine Lucy (a baby-faced Helena Bonham Carter) in situations that prove awkward, funny, and ultimately invigorating for a well-bred young lady of 1905. Lucy finds herself in a love triangle, with society telling her to choose Cecil (Day- Lewis) but a deeper force pulling her toward the unconventional, moody George Emerson (Julian Sands).A comedy of manners, "A Room with a View" is sometimes guilty of seeing its characters as types, rather than people. Even Lucy is not much more than "the young girl transfigured by Italy" that Miss Lavish (Judi Dench), a writer of cheap novels, labels her as. Still, it's easy to get caught up in the romance of this delightful movie. After seeing it, you'll want to go out and defend Truth and Love from all those who would deny them. Or at least to start saving up for a trip to Italy.

The film is a story about manners--very, very, very proper and stuffy British manners during the Edwardian era. As a result of convention, Lucy (Carter) and George (Sands) are kept apart.Partway through watching "A Room With a View", I realized that, believe it or not, the underlying theme is the same as you'll find in "Jane Eyre"....seriously. Both concern social conventions and morality versus happiness and romantic passion. In the case of Jane, her love (Mr. Rochester) was not technically able to marry her and so she ran off--and lived, for a time, with a man in training to be a missionary and his family. The missionary had no passion at all for Jane but proposed--a marriage of convenience and intellect. Should she choose this good man or live with a man already married (Rochester)--albeit, his marriage was clearly a fraud perpetrated on him. Likewise, in "A Room With a View", Helena Bonham Carter's character must choose between a more worldly (and rather non-religious) Julian Sands or the incredibly stodgy and respectable fiancé (Daniel Day-Lewis). Either a marriage of predictability and convention or a marriage with passion, and, perhaps, irrespectability are her apparent choices. Now I am NOT complaining that the themes are the same...after all, "Jane Eyre" is one of my very favorite books (and is MUCH better than the movie versions).Some things to look for in this film--the gorgeous views of Florence, the lovely score and the funny (but very explicit) skinny-dipping scene. Clever and enjoyable...but also perhaps a bit slow due to its commentary about manners.

I will gush over this film because it is worthy of praise and a standing ovation. A Room With A View is likely one of the most perfect films to grace screens in decades. The E.M. Forrester story produced and directed by the team of Ivory and Merchant brings the tale of Miss Lucy Honeychurch (Helena Bonham-Carter) to life in perfect Edwardian splendor. Wonderful locations of the Florence cathedral, Palazzo Vecchio, sculpture by Donatello, and an assortment of rolling landscapes are stunning visual fodder for this comic tale of Apolonian vs. Dionesian parlor manners. Exquisite young Bonham-Carter's casting as the virginal heiress is thwarted by her traveling companion, the venerable Dame Maggie Smith as her meddling biddy chaperon, Aunt Charlotte, with Dame Judy Dench as a proto-Jackie Collins author, Elenore Lavish, Daniel Day-Lewis as the prissy snobbish Cecil Vyse, and, a gorgeous, naked Julian Sands as socialist George Emerson comprises a most outstanding casting achievement. The excellent soundtrack offering of Dame Kiri Te Kaniwa's rendition of "O Mio Caro" takes your breath away as are the bits of wonderful piano solos that Lucy produces throughout the film. The cinematography is most wonderful with scenic panoramas of the far off Florence or Lucy sauntering through a field of poppies and wildflowers to receive the kiss to curl your toes from George Emerson, well, can romantic love get any better? This video is required for collectors of films of Julian Sands and Daniel Day-Lewis, however, its real value is as one of the finest of the Merchant Ivory magic touch in film making.