A Room with a View Movie Review

A Room with a View (1985)

Rent A Room with a View on Amazon Video (paid link) // Buy the book (paid link)
Written by: E.M. Forster (novel), Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (screenplay)
Directed by: James Ivory
Starring: Maggie Smith, Helena Bonham Carter, Denholm Elliott, Julian Sands, Simon Callow, Judi Dench, Daniel Day-Lewis
Rated: NR [R]
Watch the trailer

Plot
Lucy Honeychurch shares a brief romance with George Emerson in Florence. Yet as she tries to move on with her life and look for marriage elsewhere, can she truly forget the events of that summer?

Verdict
The concept is stronger than the execution. It's a movie about desire and love that never feels passionate. It may just be that the movie adheres too closely to the book without the aid of exposition a book provides. I understand and like the basis of the story, but I never felt it. So much of this movie is proper English people doing proper English things in their gardens.
Skip it.

Review
Lucy (Helena Bonham Carter) and her older cousin Charlotte (Maggie Smith) visit Italy, but are disappointed with their room. They wanted a room with a view but didn't get it. This is where Lucy meets George (Julian Sands). We're told they share a passion, but I couldn't see it. They do kiss. The trip ends and Lucy returns to England.

Julian Sands, Helena Bonham Carter play George, Lucy

This is English in the early 1900s and it's a bit stuffy. Half the characters are overly concerned with social status. I get the concept, and the social status is part of the impetus for her relationship with George, but so little happens. Lucy was infatuated with George. She leaves Italy and the romance, returning to England where she's engaged to a guy she doesn't really like, Cecil (Daniel Day-Lewis). Cecil's main concern it considering which family he's better than. It feels like most of this movie is affluent English families wasting time in their fancy gardens and homes.

Helena Bonham Carter, Daniel Day-Lewis play Lucy, Cecil

By sheer coincidence George moves in nearby. Her fling is now right there, and it only reinforces for Lucy how she doesn't like Cecil. She can't treat her summer in Italy as some kind of dream. She's faced with choosing between the man with which she's infatuated and her fiance that can provide for her family. Cecil is oblivious about the romance happening right next to him because he doesn't care about Lucy. It's a marriage of convenience for both of them.

This ends where it began, in Italy. It all wraps up a bit too neatly.  I could probably forgive that if there was any passion to the romance.