A Room with a View

SoftInloveRox Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Paul_message I've rarely watched a movie that has had such a negative effect on my enjoyment of it in the last five minutes as this one did. Everything else about this was an absolute delight to me. I thought Lucy and George were cast perfectly and the actors played them with beautiful subtlety of emotion. The scenes of Italy were visually gorgeous. Thoroughly enjoyable until an utterly stupefying ending that was as unnecessary as it was nonsensical. You could literally cut out the last five minutes or so of the movie after the two lovers have gone to sleep in their hotel room and everything makes intuitive and emotional sense. For me It achieved with natural grace what too many movies only contrive to, yet instead of fading to the credits they tack on an ill fitting ending scenario that wearily negates everything that has happened in a way that is neither believable or logical. Did they change directors at the last minute? Was he just having a bad day on that shoot? I guess I'll never know. Perhaps a recut? It would be an easy one to do; snip off a little bit at the end from an otherwise great film and re-release it the way it should be.

Sam Sloan First off I didn't really like the movie much. There wasn't much story in it though the introduction piqued my interest and made me expect something much better. After seeing the ending I wondered if there might be a second part because it ended so abruptly and so poorly. But what really upset me was the story's historical ignorance and it was a huge one. Consider that the story begins in Florence, Italy in 1922. Are you OK with that? Ten years later she finds herself in Florence with an Italian man she met when the story first began - 1922. Near this last scene we see the man the woman in the story married lying dead on some battlefield which would have happened certainly after 1922 and before 1932. She even tells the Italian she lost her husband in the war. What war was England involved in between 1922 and 1932? By the looks of the battlefield, it looks like the trenches of WWI but that war ended in 1918, right? Perhaps in the editing phase of the movie, whoever entered the date 1922 meant to enter 1912 instead? 1922 it couldn't have been. The movie was pretty bad anyway, so I suppose it really doesn't matter.

aspiring-star Now, *this* is what a remake of an adaptation should do! The best part about this version was the casting. Apart from Eleanor Lavish (Sinead Cusack/Judi Dench), there was no attempt to simply find actors who were similar to the first cast - the Spalls were especially good, with a little more earth and body than the '85 Emersons. I also prefer Laurence Fox's Cecil to Daniel Day Lewis's: the latter seemed a caricature. And I think everything Elaine Cassidy does is wonderful.I liked the flashback-framing-device. The Great War hadn't even happened when the book was written, and adding it in makes the rest of the movie more poignant due to the enormous social change it caused. Yes, it is awful to think that George died almost right after the main story ends - but that's the joy of an adaptation: you can combine the bits you like into the story, and throw out the ones you dislike. In a way, it's quite realistic.(If anyone thinks Forster would have blushed at Mr. Beebe with rent boys, they have not read Ragtime.)

mmunier I remember fondly the 85' version and thought worthwhile to see what could be done again with it. Alas I'm not much of a reader and so never read the book. As usual when I come here I enjoy and learn much out of other's comments. Doing so I found interesting to see a variety of comments about it sometimes contradictory but here quite united in the displeasure of the ending! I watched it on our Sydney now only commercial free channel and must admit I was generally pleased with the performance of the leading characters. Yes Maggie Smith was very much missing. Otherwise I was not too disturbed by few changes. Lucy worked well for me. As for the ending I thought it was a little bizarre and unexpected but I like to give credit for the producer for making their own choices even if sometimes I disagree with them. I understand though that there should be some kind of respect for the original work. Well I had a good time with it and don't regret the time it took to watch it as some suggested we should. Perhaps it's not always a good idea to impose on others one's feelings. But at the end of it there are just written words, not orders!