The film's charms are many but they are not the sort that resonate with any aspect of human behaviour with which I am familiar. When you get this English, or this Edwardian, or, rather, late Victorian, really, it's like science fiction, I suppose.

A young woman falls for a man during her vacation in Italy, but social pressures and his passionate nature make a fop the more socially acceptable choice. Daniel Day-Lewis can play tough, gruff, evil characters like Bill the Butcher and Daniel Plainview and even the sexually voracious Tomas, but can he play an upper-class fop? Yes, he can. The man's range is extraordinary. This film is everything that is good and bad about a Merchant/Ivory production. It's opulent, classic, and essentially British, but it's also occasionally boring, making the most of the most trifling conflicts. Part of this is film's inability as a medium to make compelling commonplace disagreements in a way that is unique to books, but Ivory's direction, distant shots of four or more characters, accentuates the germane nature of the film's tiny conflicts -- about a room with a view, the settling of accounts, and a writer's fictionalizing of a character's dalliance. Overall, if you like Merchant/Ivory films, then you've probably already seen this one, and if you don't, this isn't much different from the rest.

My very first Merchant/Ivory film, A Room with a View has been this foreboding slot in my to do list for the past three years. The reasons I didn't want to see it are probably the same that some people use to dislike it: it's schmaltzy, none too original, and labors to use all these romantic clichés to drive the point home. What I think these people lack is an ability to be wrapped up in the lurid charm of this cute little tale of two people who are both strong willed and challenge the ideals of the times they live in. While Lucy (portrayed by an unrecognizable Helena Bonham Carter) passionately plays piano, bickers with her cousin Charlotte, and doesn't like being taken advantage of by any man, George (Julian Sands) is a fascinating oddity who works on impulse and yet never steps out of bounds with the outcome to hurt her. The start of the film is in Venice, then the English countryside. Most Merchant/Ivory films have lavish set designs, costumes, and tragic heroes. The sets and principal photography are entrancing. The actual view from the room with a view is justifiably gorgeous, and every shot of the film is impeccable. The editing and timing of each scene is quick, but not harried, which leads to some great scenes between the two leads. A large amount of the film is simply filler so the young ingénue can cripple her dandy of a fiancé (played by a very...indescribable Daniel Day-Lewis). Because that character is neither evil, nor unforgivably droll, the fact that they're together or apart doesn't matter. No one cares one way or the other whether she marries one or the other. The "affair" is two sets of kisses, both surprises, and instead of dealing with it solemnly, George runs away from her. The ending plays back into the title which came off pretty cutesy. Overall it was a decent film about two very strange people who show their affection in fairly crazed ways. That, and there is an entire scene of full frontal male nudity, in no way abbreviated for us females and our waspish sensibilities. It's quite torrid to say the least. Anyway, it's about love, and all the insecurities which keep us from being with the person who we deserve.