My Favourite Movies: A Room with a View


I’ve noticed that my movie reviews lately have tended to concentrate on films that I have enjoyed recently. What I intend to do in the future – at least more often than of late – is to focus on films from my past that I loved in my formative years. On such film is the Merchant-Ivory classic A Room with a View based on the book by E M Forster. Looked at in one way this is a fairly standard love story which takes place against the backdrop of an upper class Edwardian society soon to be shattered by WW1. The main focus of the film is Lucy Honeychurch played by the delightfully quirky Helena Bonham-Carter. On a trip to Florence (presumably to finish off her education) she meets and forms an immediate emotional attachment to George Emerson played by Julian Sands who, as the son of a free-thinker, feels able to express his emotions where Lucy cannot. After passionately kissing her in a barley field (and being seen by her chaperone Charlotte Bartlett played by Maggie Smith) Lucy is whisked back to England before anything else can happen. Fate – in the guise of Lucy’s fiancé Cecil played by Daniel Day Lewis – intervenes when the Emerson’s move into a cottage in Summerstreet when Lucy and her family live. Kissed again by George, Lucy flies into a flat panic and demands to be sent to Athens. As her behaviour grows more bizarre and her lies grow more entangled she finally decides to declare her love for George to almost everyone’s relief.

As is typical of these things the plot revolves around the lies and misunderstandings of the characters as they try to make sense of what is going on. Only the audience is privileged to know all, or at least most, of the truth of the situation. It is Lucy’s refusal to accept her own emotional needs – and most especially to articulate them - that throws everything else into chaos. Some of the tension of the time is played out between a pair of Anglican clergy, the younger (and trendier) of which is played by Simon Callow. During a carriage ride to ‘see a view’ one of the coach drivers is cuddling with a very beautiful woman who he said was his sister. The older clergyman would have nothing of this and orders the woman off the carriage whilst Mr Beebe (Callow) sees no harm in it. These two conflicting forces – repression and freedom - are at war within Lucy Honeychurch. She is individualistic and opinionated (although not as much as a very similar heroine – Elizabeth Bennet) but, because of her fears of the passionate nature within her (brought to the surface by her playing of Beethoven on the piano), convinces herself that marrying the stiff and urbane Cecil is a good idea. Only when she realises that such a marriage would be an emotional death sentence does she break off the engagement and, metaphorically at least, run off to the Continent where it all started.

One of the reasons I liked this film so much – apart from the cinematography, acting and costumes – was my identification with Lucy’s dilemma. The choice of giving into passion – not knowing where it may lead – or repressing it through fear thereby attaining a comparatively safe life is a tough one. Mostly I decide to go with fear which might explain a lot about how my life has turned out so far! I’d definitely fit into the Edwardian world with their tightly buttoned down emotions. I would like to be more like George who not only feels passion but acts on it – sometimes recklessly. At least, after some heartache, he got what he wanted…….