A Room with a View (2007)

Powerful

Great Film overall

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

I think Elaine Cassidy is extraordinary in this film. I saw this version before the earlier version, and perhaps that's one reason I have felt that no other Lucy Honeychurch could ever be as fully engaged -- and engaging -- in this role as Cassidy is. She has wonderful timing and intricate variety of expression for showing us what a character is feeling. She looks the part exactly! Her scene with Timothy Spall (George's father) in the cottage near the end of the film is mesmerizing, a great duet, one could say, between two actors of genius! The careful pacing of the director and every detail of speech and demeanor is perfect. I hope this scene in particular will become known to more and more people who can appreciate its artistry. The whole cast is wonderful, and I feel we see three especially powerful performers in Cassidy, Spall, and a magnificently confused Charlotte! (A woman named Sophie Thompson, I believe; even Maggie Smith is not her equal in this role.) I feel the early scene in the pension is beautifully composed and full of interest, the humor delicious. I'm not so sure about the flash forward in the opening of the film, nor the ending, which casts a pall of sadness over the story which is not right for it. Lucy's run to the swimming hole is thrilling, but the fast cut to a certain later scene may have more to do with male fantasy (as to the directors of the film) than anything else. Considering, altogether, Cassidy's deep impersonation of Miss Honeychurch. I wish I could see this actor in other serious and artistic films. The 2005 mini-series Fingersmith can still be seen, and that, too, is a remarkable show, full of careful, expressive faces and images somewhat like certain French films of old. Cassidy personifies the strange and interesting character Maud Lilly to perfection! She seems to live her characters every step of the way, and so we live them with her -- simply the mark of a great actor, perhaps. I'm sure she's fine all through the current series The Paradise, but I can't get much involved in so confused a narrative as that. For those in London I'm sure it is good to see this actress on stage in Turgenev and other plays. On the whole, I'm not sure this is a wonderful world for film actors, especially women actors, in these days of violence in movies, cops and robbers galore, ugly intrigue — as if this is all of human life that's worth portraying. E. M. Forster knew otherwise, as did Dickens, i. e., and most of our other great writers. I expect Elaine Cassidy also has this knowledge and will persevere in finding roles that have meaning for her. ##

First off I didn't really like the movie much. There wasn't much story in it though the introduction piqued my interest and made me expect something much better. After seeing the ending I wondered if there might be a second part because it ended so abruptly and so poorly. But what really upset me was the story's historical ignorance and it was a huge one. Consider that the story begins in Florence, Italy in 1922. Are you OK with that? Ten years later she finds herself in Florence with an Italian man she met when the story first began - 1922. Near this last scene we see the man the woman in the story married lying dead on some battlefield which would have happened certainly after 1922 and before 1932. She even tells the Italian she lost her husband in the war. What war was England involved in between 1922 and 1932? By the looks of the battlefield, it looks like the trenches of WWI but that war ended in 1918, right? Perhaps in the editing phase of the movie, whoever entered the date 1922 meant to enter 1912 instead? 1922 it couldn't have been. The movie was pretty bad anyway, so I suppose it really doesn't matter.

Disappointing and unnecessary redo of the Forster tale. Elaine Cassidy doesn't come close to Helena Bonham Carter's charm and winsomeness and without that the whole enterprise is doomed from the start. The only actor to perform with any distinction is Sophie Thompson who makes a fine Cousin Charlotte, different from Maggie Smith but fun in her fluttery way. The other cast members, fine actors though they may be in other places, are adrift here dwarfed by the memory of classic performances. Even considered separately the production seems flat and airless with the scenes following one another but without a sense of cohesion. To top it all off the ending is disastrous. Really a one star affair, the second is for Sophie Thompson but she's not enough to save this wretched mess. Watch the far superior original instead!

I'm not sure why they made this version. The 1985 film had covered the ground well and been a big success.This version has its good points, however:* It gives a much more powerful feeling of the class divide and the tyranny of delicacy and propriety in the Edwardian period. This is mainly due to Sophie Thompson, who fearlessly makes Charlotte unlikeable in her embarrassed fussiness - even going a little too far in this. In the previous film, Maggie Smith possibly showed too much strength of character in the role - too much Maggie Smith, perhaps.* Rafe Spall is the best feature of this version. He shows much more lust for life - and for Lucy - than Julian Sands did. Sands was a cold fish in comparison. Also, Sands spoke with a fairly upper-class accent (quite unlike his father's) that negated the idea of his coming from a lower class. Admittedly there is a problem with Spall-George's talkativeness. He has a lot more to say for himself than he really should have, especially in the early parts of the story. That is the end of the good points. Now for the bad:* Elaine Cassidy makes Lucy live more than Helena B-C did, but at the cost of being much too knowing, pushy and generally modern than the character is in the book. This is a big flaw that strikes at the heart of the story. It is also much clearer that Lucy is, in fact, fascinated by George - for example she accepts both his stolen kisses fairly readily. Helena B-C truly seemed to dislike him, thus necessitating all the captions (taken from the book) spelling out that she was "lying". * Lawrence Fox is also bad in this. Where Daniel Day Lewis went over the top in prissiness, Fox just seems too sleepy. He specialises in this (see his role in 'Lewis'). How does he get the parts?* The bad, bad, bad point, as many have already noted, is the ending. I can only think that Andrew Davies was desperate to make his version stand out as really different. Having George die is as stupid as if Mr Darcy were to die at the end of Pride and Prejudice. (Have others noticed the parallels between the two books?) As for having Lucy take up with the coachman, words fail me. I suppose Davies wanted to show she had really thrown aside convention. Nevertheless, it stinks.