Merchant Ivory Productions, led by director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant (Howards End), became a household name with A Room with a View, the first of their extraordinary adaptations of E. M. Forster novels. A cherubic nineteen-year-old Helena Bonham Carter plays Lucy Honeychurch, a young, independent-minded, upper-class Edwardian woman who is trying to sort out her burgeoning romantic feelings, divided between an enigmatic free spirit (Leaving Las Vegas’s Julian Sands) she meets on vacation in Florence and the priggish bookworm (Lincoln’s Daniel Day-Lewis) to whom she becomes engaged back in the more corseted Surrey. Funny, sexy, and sophisticated, this gargantuan art-house hit features a sublime supporting cast—including Simon Callow (Four Weddings and a Funeral), Judi Dench (Philomena), Denholm Elliott (Raiders of the Lost Ark), Maggie Smith (Downton Abbey)—and remains a touchstone of intelligent romantic cinema.
This is incredibly fresh and arresting film-making: moving and amusing, swooningly romantic and socially ferocious – nothing less than a full-frontal (in every way) assault on your soul. – The Guardian
Note: The 1985 Oscar-winning Merchant Ivory production of A Room with a View is one of the best loved British films of the past few decades, and for good reasons: it is lovely to look at, the story makes us think and feel, it is brilliantly acted and an apt adaptation of the book.
May be suitable for older children.
Parents need to know that this movie deals with issues of intimacy and self-repression. There’s nonsexualy male full-fruntal nudity as men bathe in a pond. A man is killed in a very brief knife fight. – Common Sense Media