Uma Janela para o Amor

With 'A Room With A View' the Merchant Ivory duo present a splendid period piece and a smart classy romantic comedy. The writing is smooth and the characters are so wonderfully surprising. The humour is both creative and intelligent and is rather subtle when compared to the over-the-top nonsense toilet humour that is so frequently evident in films these days. Yet, there is also the in-your-face shocking humour. While I found the skinny dipping sequence ghastly, it was also hilarious.

'A Room With A View' has class.The Italian and English locations are stunning and the costumes are intriguing. The cinematography is delightful and the score, especially the piano pieces, are marvelous. The cast is superb as it includes a very young Helena Bonham Carter, a brash Julian Sands, a gossipy Judi Dench, a pompous Daniel Day-Lewis, an opinionated Maggie Smith, a funny Denholm Elliot, an eccentric Simon Callow and a wild Rupert Graves. To sum it up, 'A Room With A View' is a delightfully beautiful little film. It became a surprise smash hit in the U.S. which helped gain the much-deserved international acclaim.

Why can't Hollywood make movies like this? I first saw this on PBS several years ago and I bought the video which i must have watched a hundred times. I may need to buy the DVD. My only regret is that I didn't see this gem of a movie in the grand scale of a theater. I just fell in love with the scenery, the music and the actors, all perfectly cast. The funniest scene was the swimming in the pond. I still laugh out loud everytime I see that scene. Oh, would I love to be a Lucy Honeychurch with a George Emerson who adores me.

Merchant-Ivory always do a good job. Their films are not only stunning visually, but they evoke an emotional response. A Room with a View is superficially a love story. and I hate to admit it kind of stays there. But they stick to the books. Having read the respective, Howard's End, and a Passage to India, I can truly say they adhere to what has been written. But the books are completely about what you read between the lines. E.M Forester was pretty disgusted by his culture. Yet it was his....and he loved it.......because it provided itself with misfits...i.e Lucy and her beau. He was an echo of Oscar Wilde. I think if you look very hard into this movie you will see that. Denholm Elliot is the epitome of an englishman who isn't an englishman. and he is the complete opposite of Mrs. Vyse....his opposing character. Even the vicar isn't what he supposed to be. Nude Bathing (Oh my Goodness) and in praise of passion he is a free spirit. I think anyone who can say bad about his movie has issues. Yes, its main-stream international. But its beautiful.

A Room with a View possesses a fabulous cast, beautiful cinematography, an awesome adapted script, and a tale of oppressed desire during the paradigm shift from the repressive Victorian age to the more liberal Edwardian time. The film moves at a deliberate pace of country strolls and carriage rides filling the viewer with literary awakenings and music compositions. Poppies, barley, and Florence architecture decorate the screen.

The film is witty if anything with carefree individuals roaming about with leisure on their minds. Pure love and desire aches throughout and Italy is the place to bring the lovers together.

It is a handsome picture. Detailed period pieces and costumes. The cast is phenomenal! Helena Bohnam Carter portrays the peevish Lucy Honeychurch on her way to becoming her prudish Cousin and chaperone, Charlotte Bartlett (The Great Maggie Smith.) However The spirit of Italy will prevent such an occurrence and fill Miss Honeychurch with pure desire for George, the man who was brought up from the evils and hate of the world.

The adaptation is superb. Fun. It is a film to live in and swim in the sacred lake. One of the best films of the 80's. Terrific!

I have enjoyed 'A Room with a View' since it arrived on the scene in 1985. I have watched it many times and the video is wearing out and I fully intend to get the DVD of it soon. I saw it again the other night and am still charmed by it, in fact, I enjoyed it more than ever. Yes, it's a costume drama under glass, but it's a very well-done example of that popular genre. Films like this are greatly appealing to people like me who yearn for a gentler society and manners, though without the uptight staidness as exemplified by Aunt Charlotte (Maggie Smith) and Cecil Vyse (Daniel Day-Lewis). So this movie falls under the category of "comfort" film for me, and it is one of the very best.

Often Merchant/Ivory productions ring false ('Remains of the Day', for example), when they attempt to make a political statement; in that case regarding the under-current in Britain that led to the surprisingly popular British Union of Fascists created by Sir Oswald Mosley prior to WW2. But when James Ivory and his team stick to romance and the pretty manners of Edwardians, they are hard to beat.

Of the performers, Julian Sands seems the most "improved" in my opinion from earlier viewings. He is wonderful as the Byronic lover and has a ton of chemistry with Helena Bonham-Carter's lovely, spicey Lucy Honeychurch. Daniel Day-Lewis's Cecil Vyse seems a bit more contrived as time passes but is in the end a touching portrayal of a type of man that I despise.

There isn't weak link in the entire cast. The Puccini arias and Beethoven piano sonatas are beautiful and enhance the story. The photography is gorgeous and the other technical aspects are flawless.

This is the pinnacle of Merchant/Ivory films, I cannot imagine them producing anything better in the future, but who knows. They do seem to be in a cultural rut now, however.

The fringe film crowd will probably descry this sort of populist cinema, but I think that is narrow-minded snobbery, as boorish as Cecil Vyse and his insufferable intolerance to "the plebians."