A Room with a View

You can just imagine his delight when Simon Callow was told that not only would get to don some ecclesiastical cloth here, but he’d also get to romp around the lake naked with Julian Sands and Rupert Graves - thus taking part in a scene that has become iconic for just about every gay film maker in the history of last forty years! The rest of this doesn’t quite compare, but is still a charmingly characterful assessment of the idle middle-class at play in early 20th century Firenze. There’s a bit of disgruntlement at the lodgings of “Charlotte” (Maggie Smith) and her cousin “Lucy” (Helena Bonham Carter) because they don’t have a room overlooking the Arno. Fortunately, the kindly “Mr. Emerson” (Denholm Elliott) is travelling with his son “George” (Sands) and they are prepared to swap. That’s how they all met and with serendipity playing quite a part in the proceedings from now on, we return to a rustic British environment where “Lucy” lives with her mother (Rosemary Leach) and where she is to be married to the foppish “Vyse” (Daniel Day-Lewis). Her brother “Freddy” (Graves) isn’t so keen on this match and so all too eagerly winds up his would-be in-law with sarcastic ditties on the piano, and when he discovers that there are to be new occupants of a nearby cottage and that they turn out to be, well, yes - the “Emerson” duo, it’s soon quite clear that he’s not the only one who thinks these particular nuptials are unlikely to proceed as planned. With the aforementioned Mr. Callow chipping in valiantly as the vicar “Beebe” and Judi Dench engagingly providing a few short scenes as the scurrilous author “Eleanor Lavish” (pronounced “Laveesh” in some quarters) the scene is set for a romantic comedy that takes a swipe at the pomposity of English society and it’s mores as the 1900s gathers pace. Bonham-Carter, Sands and the delightfully irritating Day-Lewis are on good form throughout, as is the formidably fastidious Smith who always managed to own these prim and proper parts. As you’d come to expect from Messrs. Merchant and Ivory, the thing looks sumptuous and stylish - both against the beautiful backdrop of the sun-soaked Italian city and amidst the rural peacefulness (and hypocrisies) of life amongst the county set. There’s plenty of wit in the adaptation of the Forster critique and forty-years later is still an entertaining film to watch for two hours.