Rating: 
Summary: A lovely and funny romance!
Review: Though not entirely accurate to characters and situations in Forster's novel, this is a beautifully done film adaptation, superbly acted: an absolute treasure! What rates this DVD release at 4 stars for me is the lack of extras. Fortunately it is inexpensive, and the video and audio quality are very good, but some extra features are desired for such an outstanding film. Also notably absent in this edition are closed-captioning, or subtitles of any kind. Besides the obvious courtesy to the hearing-impaired, subtitles are handy for households with small children: darling noisemakers!
Rating: 
Summary: I've been in love with this movie since I was 9 years old
Review: This is one of my favorite movies of all time. Maybe my most favorite. I've seen it at least 500 times and always see something new in it. My favorite scene is when George kisses Lucy, after they have been playing tennis. This time she doesn't push him away, the way she did in Florence. The music is perfect also-I listen to it all the time also. The wonderful thing about this movie is that everything has a double meaning. A room with a view, of Florence that is, but George gives Lucy a room with a view of love and passion. Earlier in the movie, George and Freddy play tennis, and Cecil reads Eleanor Lavish's book. George looks at Lucy's feet with a mischevious look on his face. Not obvious, not pointed to, but sexier than anything else. A movie for a viewer who likes to see what is beneath the surface and who likes to think. Not for someone who likes Kentucky Fried movies, featuring certain perky actresses, short on the talent.
Rating:
Summary: A romantic movie that simply sparkles
Review: Even if I had a million words, I could not fully praise this movie. The story is so simple, but the incredible talent of E.M. Forster makes it more than a story of a girl and the man she chooses to marry. It explores issues of class, art, and religion. It's positively sublime moving from the Renaissance beauty of Florence to the freshness of the Surrey countryside with Puccini opera floating in the background. A rare visual treat filled with excellent performances most notably that of Denholm Elliot, whose performance was so good that I think of Mr. Emerson in every role he ever played. Do yourself a favor and watch this movie.
Rating:
Summary: If there was a 10 star rating-THIS WOULD BE IT
Review: What can I say about this magnificent movie? The only thing that comes to mind is SEE IT. The Italian scenery alone is worth it and the score, oh my lord the score!! If you want to know what love is supposed to be like watch this movie. Lucy and George(grrr) are the perfect couple and I laughed and laughed at Daniel Day Lewis playing Cecil-who would have thought that sexy Daniel Day Lewis could ever appear unappealing! But he's wonderful! Just wonderful! Charlotte will make you scream with frustration and Mr. Beeb's bouncing belly (among other things) will make you hold your sides with mirth! Room With A View is the most romantic, beautiful film I have ever seen (a close runner up would be Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle)
Rating:
Summary: In love with Lucy Honeychurch....
Review: This is the first Merchant/Ivory film I saw and it immediately made me a fan of their work. Everything about this film is well done from the beautiful scenery to the Oscar calibar acting that the stars delivered. Centered around Lucy Honeychurch and her feelings for a man that is not a proper suitor, the story follows her as she worries over the decision to go with her heart
or abide by society's rules and marry the obnoxious gentleman she is bethrothed to. Starring Helena Bonham-Carter, Maggie Smith, Julian Sands and Daniel Day Lewis, this movie is terrific from start to finish. The dvd has no special features or extras but with a film this good, there's not much else you need!
Rating:
Summary: Lovely, Passionate and Haunting
Review: Italy has never looked finer than in this classic period drama featuring the undervalued Helena Bonham Carter in a star-making performance. Tha tale is sweeping and grand, a power struggle for Carter's affections ensues, under the watchful eye of the ever-glowing Maggie Smith. Surely the finest of Merchant-Ivory's classic films, "A Room With A View" desreves a place in your DVD collection.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful film
Review: This is a masterly adaption of E.M. Forster's novel. The film begins in the beautiful city of Florence, where romantic tensions begin to develop between the young and inexperienced Lucy Honeychurch and the radical George Emerson, and takes us on to the British countryside, where Lucy struggles to resolve her longings. The tale of a young girl breaking free from the protective shell of her adolescence is an endearing one, scripted and played with a comedic edge. The humour flows naturally from the situation and the characters, and is therefore gentle and unforced. The cast are outstanding, particularly in some of the supporting roles: Daniel Day Lewis is deliciously pretentious as Cecil; Simon Callow and Denholm Elliot also shine in minor roles. Nothing here is overstated. The beauty of the locations and the characters are allowed to speak for themselves without heavy-handed direction or overly lavish treatment. Forster's story is brought to life in an uncluttered and lasting way.
Rating:
Summary: no bells nor whistles for this brilliant film
Review: No one can argue that this isn't a breathtakingly perfect adaptation of Forster's wonderful novel. Every actor is sublime, every title card and set detail is perfect, each moment is drenched with the sensibility of the English Italophiles of the time. I will always remember with pleasure the evening I first saw this magical film. I have seen it dozens of times since, and it was one of the first DVD purchases I made. Brilliance of the film aside, the DVD is a disappointment. It is incredibly stark -- only English subtitles. Wouldn't it be lovely to hear it in French or Italian? Or to have a documentary bit with interviews? Voiceover commentary? Storyboards? Surely there must be some record of this film's process. It's a good price for an awesome film, but I would rather have paid more to have had some lovely bells & whistles.
Rating:
Summary: A finely honed piece of work.
Review: Lucy Honeychurch (Helena Bonham Carter) is a beautiful, chaste young woman
who, having been brought up in a conventional upper-middle-class Edwardian home, has led a very sheltered life. So when she goes on holiday to Florence, it is de rigueur that she be accompanied by a much older spinster cousin, Miss Charlotte Bartlett (Maggie Smith), to act as chaperone and protect her from the wicked ways of the world and the evil designs of men. Miss Bartlett is prim and prudish and takes her responsibilities very seriously. Imagine her horror, therefore, when she finds sitting opposite to herself and Lucy at the communal dining table in the pension Bertolini a father and son of doubtful respectability. The father, Mr Emerson (Denholm Elliot), is a retired left-wing journalist and truth-telling eccentric, the son, George (Julien Sands), a handsome clerk on the Railway. She is particularly put off by the father who is forward and speaks with a vulgar accent, and who when Miss Bartlett complains that they have a room without a view has the audacity to offer his own in exchange. How dare he! "He was only trying to be kind." Lucy tells her cousin later and eventually with the help of Rev Beebe (Simon Callow), an easy-going fun-loving parson, who they have known from way back and who just happens to be staying in the same pension (this tale is full of coincidences) she relents. Having been allowed to go for a walk one day in the company of a Miss Lavish (Judi Dench), a garrulous romantic novelist, she suddenly finds herself abandoned in one of Florence's huge squares, and is horror-struck to witness a murder - one young, passionate Italian killing another. She promptly faints, but is caught before she hits the ground by George, who suddenly appears from nowhere. He carries her away and, when she recovers, they talk - a little. He tells her that something tremendous has happened to him, but she pretends not to understand. In truth she is frightened, frightened of him, of what the future might hold and of being swept out of her comfortable, safe existence by this impetuous person with his free and open attitude to life. Later when all the occupants of the pension Bertolini go on an outing into the countryside, Lucy, managing to escape for a moment from her vigilant cousin,
comes across him standing alone in a field of poppies. Seeing her, he strides towards her and without a word being spoken takes her in his arms and kisses her passionately. But sadly, at that moment Charlotte appears, and, aghast, hurries her a way. And on the following day, only midway through their holiday, they leave for England. Lucy has a naturally warm, passionate nature that has been extremely repressed by her upbringing. Mr Beebe is the first to recognise this when hearing her play Beethoven's Opus 111 one of the most difficult in the repertoire. He says to her, "If you ever take to live as you play it will be exciting." And yet, thinking she will never see George again, the first thing she does on her return to England is to get engaged to Cecil Vyse
(Daniel Day-Lewis) a stiff and stilted, narrow intellectual - though with a streak of dignity. Lucy has written to two dear old sisters who she met at the Pension Bertolini to ask them to come for a holiday and rent a villa just up the road from her. But Cecil, revealing something of his character, plays a trick. Happening to be in the National Gallery one day, he meets Mr Emerson and George (yet another coincidence) and, hearing that they are looking for somewhere to live, brings about his own downfall by inviting them to rent the villa that Lucy has marked down for the sisters. When she hears this Lucy is angry, and begins to think that Cecil will not make an ideal husband. And she notices that he refuses to take part in anything. When asked to join in a game of tennis he says "There are chaps that are not good for anything but books. I plead guilty to being one of those chaps" And she says to him, " When I think of you, I always think of you in a room, never in the open air." And later, when she is breaking off their engagement, "You are the sort that can't know anyone intimately, least of all a woman." But, nevertheless, until almost the very end of the film she deceives herself into thinking she doesn't love George, because, presumably, he is deemed by her family to be beneath them socially. But old Mr Emerson finally convinces her; "Dear girl," he says to her, "marry my boy. When I think what life is and how seldom love is answered by love - marry him; it is one of the moments for which the world was made." The image that stays in the mind is the gleeful, smiling face of Lucy as she chases her mother's carriage after having just decided to marry George. This film is a finely honed piece of work, correct in every possible detail. A lot of careful work must have gone into the casting and I can't imagine a cast more perfect. But I must just mention the brilliance of the late Denhom Elliot, who makes his Mr Emerson so very lovable, with his simple wisdom and his permanently pained and anxious expression. What a loss he is to the profession. And within its limitations this film is so marvelously true to the book. You just have to turn a blind eye to the many coincidences.
Rating:
Summary: A finely honed piece of work.
Review: (...) This film is a finely honed piece of work, correct in every possible detail. A lot of careful work must have gone into the casting and I can't imagine a cast more perfect. But I must just mention the brilliance of the late Denhom Elliot, who makes his Mr Emerson so very lovable, with his simple wisdom and his permanently pained and anxious expression. What a loss he is to the profession. And within its limitations this film is so marvelously true to the book. You just have to turn a blind eye to the many coincidences.
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