A ROOM WITH A VIEW (1986) Cert PG
Maggie Smith, Helena Bonham-Carter, Denholm Elliott, Simon Callow. Directed by James Ivory. (1h 52m)

Merchant Ivory's delightful adaptation of EM Forster's A Room With A View is still a glorious piece of entertainment. It's not just an enchanting comedy of manners about the English upper class at home and abroad, but also a soaring romantic drama about being true to your heart rather than to society's rules. Helena Bonham-Carter is well brought-up young Englishwoman Lucy Honeychurch, touring Italy in the early 20th century with her prim older cousin, played by the marvellous Maggie Smith. At a hotel in Florence, she encounters the free-spirited George Emerson (Julian Sands). Confused and stirred by the raw unfettered romanticism of Tuscany, Lucy returns to England and accepts a proposal from her pompous and buttoned-up suitor Cecil (played to comic perfection by Daniel Day-Lewis). It's an eminently sensible match, but is it the right one for the spirited and headstrong Lucy? When George reappears in her life, she must decide between the two men... No film has better captured that awkward transition in history from strait-laced Victorian morality to the free-thinking emotion of the Edwardian era, all set against a sumptuous backdrop of picturesque Florence and the English countryside. A superb roll-call of some of Britain's finest character actors provide rich support, not least the divine Maggie Smith and wonderful and much-missed Denholm Elliott as George's impassioned father. This is pure delight from start to finish.