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.

This easily could have been a made-for-TV movie. This was a total bore fest that went on far too long. Incredibly weak, almost non-existent plot. Betrothed girl meets someone else, but strict older relative doesn't approve. Like we haven't seen that before in a million films. I gave a couple stars for the A-list casting and the aesthetics of the scenery,costumes, etc. I read somewhere that this is likened to Jane Eyre?!?!? I shudder at the comparison! Maybe the book was much better, but I'm not much in the mood to give it a try after watching the movie adaptation, that is for sure.

Greetings from Lithuania."A Room with a View" (1985) is probably one of the slowest movies i have ever saw. Not that i don't liked it, i did overall, but my overall experience with the picture could have been far more positive if the narrative could have been a bit more faster - it takes it's simple story to tell an eternity. Acting was superb by all involved, especially by Daniel Day-Lewis who stole every scene as Cecil - amazing performance, if a bit theatrical, but this is Daniel Day-Lewis we are talking about. Story was simple, yet meaningful. The pacing of this movie is the worst thing in this picture - it is a very slow moving film, with running time almost 2 hours felt like two days, i literally was able to finish watching the whole movie in 5 days...Overall, "A Room with a View" is a very slow burning movie with great cast doing superb job. It tels good story in a great settings but the pacing is very poor - movie drags a lot.

You too might want to scream out, "Hush, hush sweet Charlotte!" after the tenth time cousin Maggie Smith sticks her foot in it. For the companion to the lovely Helena Bonham Carter to be so socially backwards while the rest of her family is so earthy adds great charm to Smith's Oscar Nominated performance. This is also an opportunity to see Dame Maggie working with her good friend, the future Dame Judi Dench, seen in the early sequences as a rather Bohemian writer.Carter and Smith are on vacation in Italy and the moment Maggie views the lack of a view from their window, she is up in arms. Cockney Denholm Elliott offers to switch his and his son Julian Sands room for theirs which has a view, and uppity Maggie declines, shocked that he would have the audacity to even speak to them, something she believes that the lower classes shouldn't do. But easy going Helena isn't so proud and graciously accepts, going as far as spending time with the educated Sands and growing fond of him in spite of the fact that she's already engaged to the stuffy Daniel Day Lewis.The romantic intrigue continues at Carter's summer home back in England where she must make some quick decisions in regards to stuffy Daniel. Elliott and Sands come for weekend where Carter's charming brother Rupert Graves is introduced, revealing a free spirit and almost Bohemian nature between the two siblings. This also creates a bond between Sands and Graves which borders on the homo-erotic, especially in a sudden nude scene that also includes the local minister Simon Callow.As the classes clash and Carter becomes torn between love and obligation, the film moves from drawing room comedy into social drama. The beauty of the dramatic parts is that it never looses the mood established in the first half. Everybody gets a chance to shine, but they are forced to step back every time Maggie Smith re-appears on the scene. Even when she has an argument with a cab driver over the cost, Smith tears the roof off.Elliott shows that just because someone is identified as lower class does mean that they lack in class. You can see how the gentleness transfered from father to son and how the desire to be something more than what he would have been a century earlier has inspired Sand's jovial character. Lewis headed to stardom quickly after this surprise hit, and Carter made a successful entrance into films with this and the same year's "Lady Jane", although this is a far cry from her more recent films under the direction of Tim Burton. Smith's character reminded me of a more comical version of Lady Rosamund, Smith's character's daughter on "Downton Abbey".