A Room with a View

**A Room with a View** is a 1986 film starring Maggie Smith, Denholm Elliott, Judi Dench, Simon Callow, Helena Bonham Carter, Julian Sands, Daniel Day-Lewis, Fabia Drake, Patrick Godfrey, Rupert Graves, Joan Henley and Rosemary Leach, directed by James Ivory, written by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and produced by Ismail Merchant.

## Plot

In 1907, a young English girl, Lucy Honeychurch, and her spinster 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 Arno as promised. At dinner, they meet other English guests: the Reverend Mr Beebe, two elderly spinster sisters, the Misses Alan, the romance author, Eleanor Lavish, the freethinking Mr Emerson and his handsome philosophical son, George.

Learning about Charlotte and Lucy's view predicament, 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. She faints but George Emerson appears and comes to her aid. When Lucy has recovered, the two have a personal discussion before returning to the pensione.

Later, Charlotte, Lucy, and the Emersons join other British tourists for a day trip to the Fiesole countryside. Charlotte and Eleanor Lavish engage in conversation considered "unsuitable" for young ladies, so Lucy goes looking for Mr. Beebe. Instead, the Italian driver mistakenly leads her to where George is admiring the view from a hillside. Seeing Lucy, he suddenly embraces and passionately kisses her. Charlotte appears and intervenes. Worried that Lucy's mother will consider her an inadequate chaperone, Charlotte swears Lucy to secrecy and cuts their trip short.

Upon returning to Surrey in England, Lucy says nothing to her mother about the incident and pretends to forget it. She is soon engaged to Cecil Vyse, a wealthy and socially prominent man who is snobbish and pretentious. Cecil loves Lucy but he and his mother consider the Honeychurch family as their inferiors, dismaying Mrs Honeychurch. Lucy soon learns that Mr Emerson is moving into Sir Harry Otway's rental cottage, with George visiting on weekends. Lucy intended for the two Misses Alan to live there and is cross with Cecil upon learning that through a chance meeting with the Emersons in London, Cecil recommended the cottage to them. He proclaims his motive was to annoy Sir Harry, who Cecil considers a snob, and believes will find the Emersons as being "too common".

George's presence upends Lucy's life, and her suppressed feelings for him surface. Meanwhile, Lucy's brother, Freddy, has become friends with George. Freddy invites George to play tennis at Windy Corner, the Honeychurch home, during which Cecil mockingly reads aloud from Miss Lavish's latest novel set in Italy. Cecil, still reading, is oblivious when George passionately kisses Lucy in the garden. As Cecil continues reading aloud, Lucy recognizes a scene as being identical to her and George's encounter in Fiesole. She confronts Charlotte, who admits to telling Miss Lavish, who used it in her story. Lucy orders George to leave Windy Corner and never return. He says that Cecil sees her only as a possession and will never love her for herself, as he would. Lucy seems unmoved, but soon after ends her engagement to Cecil, saying they are incompatible. To escape the ensuing fallout, she arranges to travel to Greece with the Misses Alan. George, unable to be around Lucy, arranges for his father to move to London, unaware Lucy is no longer engaged. When Lucy stops by Mr Beebe's home to fetch Charlotte, she is confronted by Mr. Emerson, who happens to be there. She finally realizes her true feelings for George. At the end, newlyweds George and Lucy honeymoon at the Italian pensione where they met, in the room with a view, overlooking Florence's Duomo.