Flyerplesys Perfectly adorable

Ava-Grace Willis Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Delight Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

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.

pawebster I'm not sure why they made this version. The 1985 film had covered the ground well and been a big success.This version has its good points, however:* It gives a much more powerful feeling of the class divide and the tyranny of delicacy and propriety in the Edwardian period. This is mainly due to Sophie Thompson, who fearlessly makes Charlotte unlikeable in her embarrassed fussiness - even going a little too far in this. In the previous film, Maggie Smith possibly showed too much strength of character in the role - too much Maggie Smith, perhaps.* Rafe Spall is the best feature of this version. He shows much more lust for life - and for Lucy - than Julian Sands did. Sands was a cold fish in comparison. Also, Sands spoke with a fairly upper-class accent (quite unlike his father's) that negated the idea of his coming from a lower class. Admittedly there is a problem with Spall-George's talkativeness. He has a lot more to say for himself than he really should have, especially in the early parts of the story. That is the end of the good points. Now for the bad:* Elaine Cassidy makes Lucy live more than Helena B-C did, but at the cost of being much too knowing, pushy and generally modern than the character is in the book. This is a big flaw that strikes at the heart of the story. It is also much clearer that Lucy is, in fact, fascinated by George - for example she accepts both his stolen kisses fairly readily. Helena B-C truly seemed to dislike him, thus necessitating all the captions (taken from the book) spelling out that she was "lying". * Lawrence Fox is also bad in this. Where Daniel Day Lewis went over the top in prissiness, Fox just seems too sleepy. He specialises in this (see his role in 'Lewis'). How does he get the parts?* The bad, bad, bad point, as many have already noted, is the ending. I can only think that Andrew Davies was desperate to make his version stand out as really different. Having George die is as stupid as if Mr Darcy were to die at the end of Pride and Prejudice. (Have others noticed the parallels between the two books?) As for having Lucy take up with the coachman, words fail me. I suppose Davies wanted to show she had really thrown aside convention. Nevertheless, it stinks.

alfa-16 I see that Elaine Cassidy has been tipped for the top. Her Lucy Honeychurch catches some of what Helena Bonham Carter missed in the Merchant Ivory film, without succeeding in eclipsing her. The main improvement is that she and a surprisingly unfoppish Laurence Fox look like a more realistic pair of lovers in this Andrew Davies adaptation than HBC and DDL and seem fated for different reasons. I wasn't quite so immediately convinced Rafe Spall had what it took to part them.Sophie Thompson never disappoints and is a fabulous Charlotte, Mark Williams turns in another great piece of work as does Timothy West.In fact, compared to the Merchant Ivory version, most of the characters have a little more nuanced colour in their cheeks, with the exception of Freddie and Mrs Honeychurch. What stops this taking off and flying is the lack of real vitality in the script and a lot of direction which tends toward the pedestrian.Although, on balance, I think I still prefer the Merchant Ivory version, there's plenty enough here to enjoy.

london29 This new adaptation of Forster's classic seems bizarrely beholden to Merchant Ivory's more successful film. Unfortunately it has little new to add (and at that, only something spurious) and, indeed, steals much from the film - including things that weren't even in the novel.Like Merchant Ivory, this adaptation plays up the heady romance, but lacks that film's moments of rapture. Writer Andrew Davies' decision to tell the story in flashback was bizarre and unnecessary - adding narrative twists that really did not help the drama in any way.Performances were largely disappointing. However, Elaine Cassidy breathed real life into Lucy Honeychurch. On the other hand, Sophie Thompson and Sinead Cussack both chose to base their characters on the performances given by Maggie Smith and Judi Dench in the film. As such they came off as poor imitations. Other performances were underwhelming, particularly the usually great Laurence Fox who both underplayed and seemed wholly unable to convince as an upper class Edwardian.