A Room with a View (1985), with Helena Bonham Carter and Daniel Day-Lewis: Movie Review

First and foremost, it’s a comedy of manners set in the Edwardian era (1908). It presents the middle class of this period brilliantly, with its values, mores, and attitudes. It also offers a glimpse at middle-class and aristocratic holdovers from the Victorian era.

Lucy Honeychurch (played by Helena Bonham Carter) is a well-bred upper-middle-class girl who takes a trip to Italy to round up her education. Her chaperone is an older cousin of hers, Miss Charlotte Bartlett (played by Maggie Smith, who is wonderful, as always). In Italy the two women meet the Emersons, a father and son who are much less bothered with social convention than young Lucy and her spinster chaperone.

The dialogues and situations are magnificent in rendering the class difference. Both the Honeychurches and the Emersons are middle-class, but the women are upper middle-class, Lucy’s father having been a solicitor, while Mr. Emerson the father (played by Denholm Elliott) is a retired journalist. George Emerson, the son (Julian Sands), is a freethinker, with no regard for proper, conventional social behavior. His father says about him that he can’t “stop him from brooding.” Despite this characterization, which may come from the nature of E.M. Forster himself, George Emerson embraces life with a passion. In Italy, he spends some time alone with Lucy, and in one of their encounters he kisses her – without asking for her permission.

Lucy, on the other hand, grows as a person. Watch Helena Bonham Carter’s acting closely and you’ll see the seeds of her rebelliousness early on, in Italy, when she reacts to Miss Bartlett’s treatment of the Emersons, who at one point tried to be kind but presented their offer which Miss Bartlett considered to be socially acceptable; you will also see the rebel in Lucy when you hear her play Beethoven (and yes, Helena actually learned to play the piano -- and a Beethoven sonata and Schubert piece, no less -- prior to shooting the movie, and, as I learned from the audio commentary on the Region 2 DVD I watched, music critics appreciated her talent); and you will also her playful spirit when she passes by George, her brother Freddie (Rupert Graves), and Mr. Beebe the vicar (Simon Callow) having a naked romp in and around the Sacred Lake.

I will let you discover the details of A Room with a View on your own. They are many, and they’re all meaningful in the context of the social commentary the film presents.

If you want to read E.M. Forster’s novel A Room with a View, do note that you can do so online for free at Project Gutenberg. Here it is.

Lucy Honeychurch: Mother doesn't like me playing Beethoven. She says I'm always peevish afterwards.
Reverend Beebe: Naturally one would be . . . stirred up.

Reverend Beebe: If Miss Honeychurch ever takes to live as she plays, it will be very exciting -- both for us and for her.

George Emerson: My father says there is only one perfect view, and that's the view of the sky over our heads.
Cecil Vyse: I expect your father has been reading Dante.

Charlotte Bartlett: I shall never forgive myself.
Lucy Honeychurch: You always say that, Charlotte, but you always do forgive yourself.

The Reverend Mr. Eager: Remember the facts about this church of Santa Croce; how it was built by faith in the full fervour of medievalism.
Mr. Emerson: Built by faith indeed! That simply means the workers weren't paid properly.

Cecil Vyse: I have no profession. My attitude – quite an indefensible one – is that as long as I am no trouble to anyone, I have the right to do as I like. It is, I dare say, an example of my decadence.

Cecil Vyse: Do you know, mother, I shall have our children educated just like Lucy. Bring them up among honest country folks for freshness, send them to Italy for subtlety, and then – not till then – let them come to London.

Many writers I’ve read about say that E.M. Forster is one of their favorite authors. After watching this film, which apparently lifts many dialogues directly from the book, I am beginning to see why E.M. Forster is appreciated so much.

While he was much-loved during his lifetime, here’s what George Steiner had to say about him at his death in 1970 when an interviewer asked him about E.M. Forster’s reputation abroad (in the extras of the DVD I watched, which is only available as a Region 2 DVD):

“That’s a very difficult question. Very great in India and Ceylon, I understand, but if you were to ask me, is he in a class with those whose books are in everybody’s pocket today – Camus, Hermann Hesse, D.H. Lawrence – no, much smaller than that.”

Here’s what E.M. Forster, modestly, said about himself at 80 (he lived to be 91):

“I have enjoyed writing. I’ve never found it a trial or an ordeal of suffering as some writers do.” “I’d better add that I am quite sure I’m not a great novelist. Because I’ve only got down to paper, really, three types of people: the person I think I am, the people who irritate me, and the people I’d like to be.”