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A Room With A View

© Wyn Middleton

It's the early 1900's.Lucy Honeychurch (Helena Bonham Carter), a young Englishwoman, makes her first visit to Italy, with her cousin Charlotte Bartlett (Maggie Smith) as a travelling companion and chaperone.

While in Florence they stay at a pensione, but are booked in a room without a view, Mr. Emerson (Denholm Elliott) insists that the women take his rooms, which contain a view from the window.

During dinner they also meet the other guests; Mr. Emerson's son George (Julian Sands), Reverand Beebe (Simon Callow), sisters Catherine (Fabia Drake) and Teresa Alan (Joan Henley), and romantic novelist Miss Lavish (Judi Dench).

Lucy is intrigued when she makes the acquaintance of free-spirited George Emerson; though at first she remains cold to his advances he later takes the opportunity to kiss her. A shocked Miss Bartlett witnesses the embrace and insists they leave for England at once.

Back in England, where Lucy lives with mother (Rosemary Leach) and younger brother Freddy (Rupert Graves), she settles back into a young woman's pastoral existence. With the passion of George out of the way, Lucy settles into her relationship with Cecil (Daniel Day-Lewis), a twit to whom she is engaged. It turns out that there is a vacant cottage in the area and Lucy suggests Catherine and Teresa Alan as possible tenants. Freddy has another idea.

On a recent trip to London, he met a father and son who he thinks might make good neighbours, none other than Mr. Emerson and George. Thinking the two to be wildly eccentric, Freddy intends his invitation as a joke, but Mr. Emerson accepts and moves into the area.

George and Freddy become good friends. Lucy tries to avoid paying attention to George, but there is no doubt her feelings are beginning to mount for the charming young man. One day George kisses Lucy once again, and then follows this by proclaiming his love for her.

It's make your mind up time for Lucy?

Does she take the safe and sound and surely dull life with Cecil, or does she allow her feelings for George to emerge?

What do you think?

If it's period romance you're after, this is a charming film, which evokes a time when the manners and morals of Victorian society were slowly but surely making way for the more liberal and modern ways of the 20th century.

This 1986 film, an adaptation of the E.M. Forster novel, is intelligently scripted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Memorable settings in a languid pre First World War Italian summer, sumptuously shot by Tony Pierce-Roberts, coupled with costumes and set design really capture the period feel of this movie very well.

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