A Room with a View

A Room with a View is a 1985 British romance film directed by James Ivory and produced by Ismail Merchant. It is written by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who adapted E. M. Forster's 1908 novel A Room with a View. Set in England and Italy, it is about a young woman named Lucy Honeychurch (Helena Bonham Carter) in the final throes of the restrictive and repressed culture of Edwardian England and her developing love for a free-spirited young man, George Emerson (Julian Sands). Maggie Smith, Denholm Elliott, Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench and Simon Callow feature in supporting roles. The film closely follows the novel by the use of chapter titles to distinguish thematic segments. A Room with a View received universal critical acclaim and was a box-office success. At the 59th Academy Awards it was nominated for eight Academy Awards (including Best Picture) and won three: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design. It also won five British Academy Film Awards and a Golden Globe. In 1999 the British Film Institute placed A Room with a View 73rd on its list of the top 100 British films. Plot In 1907 a young Englishwoman, Lucy Honeychurch, and her cousin and chaperone, Charlotte Bartlett, stay at the Pensione Bertolini while on holiday in Florence. They are disappointed their rooms lack a view of the River Arno as promised. At dinner they meet other English guests: the Reverend Mr Beebe; two elderly spinster sisters, the Misses Alan; romance author Eleanor Lavish; the freethinking Mr Emerson; and his quiet, handsome son George. Learning about Charlotte and Lucy's disappointment at not having a view of the river, Mr Emerson and George offer to exchange rooms, though Charlotte considers the suggestion indelicate. Mr Beebe mediates and the switch is made. While touring the Piazza della Signoria the next day Lucy witnesses a local man being brutally stabbed and killed. She faints but George Emerson appears and comes to her aid. When Lucy has recovered the two have a brief but unchaperoned discussion before returning to the pensione.