Review of Room With A View, A

Introduction

We start in Florence, where Lucy Honeychurch (Helena Bonham Carter) is travelling with her insufferable cousin Charlotte as chaperone (Maggie Smith). Unfortunately they lack a view outside of their window and when mentioning this at dinner with other guests, two men say they have a view and would be willing to swap. This is where Lucy meets George Emerson (Julian Sands) and his father (Denholm Elliot) as they trade rooms. There`s certainly something a little different about George and his father, and George steals a kiss from Lucy while they`re out and about with the others.

Shocked by such a thing, Charlotte drags Lucy back home to Surrey where she becomes engaged to the pompous Cecil (Daniel Day-Lewis). As chance would happen, George Emerson moves to the area and encounters Lucy once more. The passion missing from Cecil and Lucy`s relationship is fired up between Lucy and George but Lucy is clearly in denial and can`t admit that such a thing could happen between them. Is she doomed to live life without accepting and knowing free spirited love?

Video

Presented with a 1.78:1 letterbox transfer, A Room With A View could have looked so much better. Loss of detail is apparent when the image is zoomed to fit a widescreen. Not only this, but the colours are lacking and look a bit muted. This is either a poor transfer or how the film was shot, which is a great shame since we spend time in Florence and the English countryside, which you can imagine looks lush and rich. Film dirt isn`t too common a problem nor is digital compression. The back of the box states, "16:9", which I thought meant it was anamorphically enhanced. Alas not.

Audio

Just a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack, which performs well throughout the film. Dialogue is clear, music is well produced and there are no real complaints to be made of this dialogue driven film. A 5.1 soundtrack however might have brought the operatic music at the beginning more to life throughout the room.

Features

Static, easy to navigate menus with:

• Photo Gallery - 10 stills from the film, nothing interesting.
• Filmography - a few pages of static text about the film. Once read, never touched again.
• Trailer (2:15) - Long and plain trailer. How do you market a film like this?

A Room With A View has Englilsh subtitles and is packaged in DVD keepcase.

Conclusion

I enjoy watching period drama, especially some the Merchant/Ivory films. When compared with Howards End or The Remains of the Day, both of which followed later, A Room With A View feels too light and fanciful. It`s an enjoyable film, but simply doesn`t work for me in the same way as the other Merchant/Ivory films. The spark at the heart of the film doesn`t have the same intensity.

The Florentine backdrop is wonderful, as is the Surrey countryside, but either the transfer makes the colour look washed out or this is how it really is. Detail and colour just isn`t a strong point, and the lack of an anamorphic transfer doesn`t help the film. The story is in the visuals as well as E.M. Forster`s comedy. The characters here are well defined with the wonderfully over-bearing Maggie Brown and a snobbish Daniel Day-Lewis. Helena Bonham Carter doesn`t act so well here though and can seem a bit dull.

The screenplay adaptation, by Ruth Prawer-Jhabvala (Howards End, The Remains of the Day), captures the spirit of English class and period very well and manages to make the DVD rise above the niggles I have.

Despite the reservations I have, A Room With A View is an enjoyable film; it`s light and entertaining so if you haven`t seen it, do so.