Absolutely the worst movie.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

At first I wasn't sure how I'd react to this remake because I used to think I enjoyed the original, but I was pleasantly surprised to find it much easier to follow the *story* and see the *characters* in this retelling. It was actually quite refreshing.I didn't realize until I saw this version that the 1985 film is so self-consciously stylistic that it ends up being too clever for its own good. In the original, the intonation by the actors is so stilted that the dialogue feels like a series of non sequiturs. Every shot screams, "Look! Look at this gorgeous cinematography!" There isn't much chemistry between the two romantic leads, Daniel Day Lewis reduces Cecil to a tedious cartoon character, and Denholm Elliott overdoes his accent. Julian Sands, though interesting, seems more like a brother from another planet than a thoughtful subversive. In the Merchant-Ivory version, the story and the characters get buried under a layer of heavily vaselined romanticism.Through this bittersweet remake, I finally saw the story and felt I better understood what Forster was trying to say in his book. You see the Emersons' working-class roots and how they stick out among the more genteel travelers in Florence. You get to really see Cecil as a good but flawed human being. And, most importantly, you see Lucy as a sweet but unsure girl growing into a bright young woman in spite of herself.Director Renton keeps a light touch and doesn't spend any more time than is necessary on any part of the story. You see a dinner party, you hear a rough voice cut through the chatter, you see Charlotte put on the spot. That's the point of that scene, and it does its job with no extra fanfare. There is no inordinate amount of time spent on playing up some tennis game or skinnydipping episode. No one is allowed to chew the scenery.As a result, I felt moved by the passion between Lucy and George in a way that I didn't when watching the original. I felt the pain caused by their predicament. The scenes between Lucy and George were more emotionally charged, especially when Lucy has her epiphany. In the 1985 version, every scene between the two leads feels like little more than comic relief.And yes, I liked the ending in this version. It added gravity to the story and helped me feel the depth of Lucy's love for George. Kudos to Andrew Davies, Nicholas Renton, and especially to Rafe Spall and the beautiful Elaine Cassidy. They all did a brilliant job in bringing a terrific story to life. By the end of this version, I had forgotten all about the original and fell in love with these characters all over again.

I'm not sure why they made this version. The 1985 film had covered the ground well and been a big success.This version has its good points, however:* It gives a much more powerful feeling of the class divide and the tyranny of delicacy and propriety in the Edwardian period. This is mainly due to Sophie Thompson, who fearlessly makes Charlotte unlikeable in her embarrassed fussiness - even going a little too far in this. In the previous film, Maggie Smith possibly showed too much strength of character in the role - too much Maggie Smith, perhaps.* Rafe Spall is the best feature of this version. He shows much more lust for life - and for Lucy - than Julian Sands did. Sands was a cold fish in comparison. Also, Sands spoke with a fairly upper-class accent (quite unlike his father's) that negated the idea of his coming from a lower class. Admittedly there is a problem with Spall-George's talkativeness. He has a lot more to say for himself than he really should have, especially in the early parts of the story. That is the end of the good points. Now for the bad:* Elaine Cassidy makes Lucy live more than Helena B-C did, but at the cost of being much too knowing, pushy and generally modern than the character is in the book. This is a big flaw that strikes at the heart of the story. It is also much clearer that Lucy is, in fact, fascinated by George - for example she accepts both his stolen kisses fairly readily. Helena B-C truly seemed to dislike him, thus necessitating all the captions (taken from the book) spelling out that she was "lying". * Lawrence Fox is also bad in this. Where Daniel Day Lewis went over the top in prissiness, Fox just seems too sleepy. He specialises in this (see his role in 'Lewis'). How does he get the parts?* The bad, bad, bad point, as many have already noted, is the ending. I can only think that Andrew Davies was desperate to make his version stand out as really different. Having George die is as stupid as if Mr Darcy were to die at the end of Pride and Prejudice. (Have others noticed the parallels between the two books?) As for having Lucy take up with the coachman, words fail me. I suppose Davies wanted to show she had really thrown aside convention. Nevertheless, it stinks.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS!!!!! I watched this because I loved both Forster's novel and James Ivory's version of it. I wondered if this adaptation might be as good and so settled down to see; but oh how I wish I hadn't.Mr Beeb and his....'affection' for Lucy gave me the creeps the most (I'm really *trying* not to call him a vulgar vicar). His reaction to her announcement of her feelings for George left me speechless (not an easy thing to achieve, as my family will testify). This was never even hinted at in the book.I gave this TV adaptation of the wonderful original novel a 2 based purely on the excellent acting. Without the stalewart acting skills of the two young leads, as well as the always wonderful Sophie Thompson, Mark Williams, Sinead Cusack and Timothy Spall I would've given it an 1 (or even a zero if the marks went that low).However,the ending deserves the most vitriolic censure of all; Andrew Davies should hang his head in shame for being responsible for this dross.It snatched from the faithful reader of the novel, and fans of the 1985 film, the romantic ending that the two lovers deserved and ultimately got. Thereby E. M. Forster's attempt to break the class divide is shattered; in one fell swoop Davies merely reiterates what so many thought back then - if you crossed classes it could only end in tears.Please, PLEASE if you want the real ending, then read the novel; or even watch the sumptuous 1985 version with Julian Sands, Helena Bonham Carter and Dame Maggie Smith.Both show that class should not, and does not, matter; this was the somewhat outrageous idea that Forster had in 1908, and that Davies appears to have completely ignored in 2007. I began to wonder after watching an hour in open mouthed horror if he'd even looked at the original novel, let alone read it.Or perhaps he just decided that the entire point of the book was something he could ignore, in favour of his own unwatchable, morbid and totally disjointed ending? Better a brief swipe at the futility of war than a happy ending right? Either way he should be locked in a room with both the earlier film and the novel and forced to watch/read them over and over again, until he understands what Forster was trying to say about the pathetic snobbery and class divide of late Edwardian society.This was something that Ruth Prawer Jhabvala did appreciate (she was the adapter of the novel for the 1985 James Ivory film). Sadly it is clearly something Andrew Davies didn't master when he wrote this bilge.The other unforgivable thing he did was to gloss over all the remarkable little idiosyncrasies that Lucy, her cousin and all the other guests had (including George Emmerson and his father), and what made their eclectic little band so wonderfully entertaining.Instead he portrayed them all as sad little people leading mundane little lives and pretending they weren't. The whole programme was utterly depressing, instead of uplifting like the original novel.I think E. M. Forster is not so much turning in his grave as spinning in it after this vandalisation of his book. I am only thankful he died in 1970 and is not alive to witness this butchery of, what I personally think was, his greatest work.Unless you are a fan of the actors in this, or if you wish to see Timothy Spall acting along side his real life, and equally talented, son (Rafe Spall), then *miss.it.*Seriously, I mean it - it's a 116 minutes of your life you won't get back; when it comes out on DVD don't waste your money on it.You must have better things to spend that fourteen pounds on; like another thimbleful of petrol for your smart car, or those gorgeous shoes you couldn't afford until they were in the sale (and so what if the only pair the shop's got are two size too small and the wrong colour, they're half price! Yes, I've been there - only for me it was boots).But if the premise really appeals to you then, for the love of God, read the book or, if you really want the viewing experience, see the earlier film version; but I beg you, for the sake of your will to live (I almost lost mine), toss this one back in the 'bargain bin' where it ultimately belongs and walk swiftly away.

I'd like to say how much I enjoyed this ITV remake. I'd like to, and I had been prepared to until the final five minutes of the film, but I can't.In the interest of full disclosure, I've always been a huge fan of the 1985 Merchant Ivory adaptation, so I was prepared not to like this. I was pleasantly surprised as the story unwound. To its credit, this version makes much more of the class difference between George and Lucy which wasn't as obvious in the other one, with the aristocratic-looking Helena Bonham Carter and Julian Sands in the leads.In retrospect, HBC and Sands both come off as too remote and stiff -- unfortunate in a film that is supposed to be about a young woman's sexual awakening and young man who feels truly alive. Rafe Spall and Elaine Cassidy suit the parts admirably, giving their characters a warm sexiness that their predecessors never could.SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER -- My HUGE problem with this adaptation is the completely unnecessary ending tacked on in a rare misstep by Andrew Davies, which takes place 10 years after the events we have just seen. Lucy has returned for a bittersweet visit to Florence, where we learn that her beloved husband George was killed in WWI. She takes a nostalgic trip to the meadow where she and George first kissed, and the film ends with the completely bizarre suggestion that she will end up with the carriage driver Paolo who led her to George on that fateful day! I don't have a problem, in general, with adapters taking liberties with their source material, but this ending feels utterly ridiculous. If Davies wanted to suggest the looming war or play up more of the class struggle, surely there were other ways to do it. The film up to that point had been about truly being alive. Showing us that George has died undoes the joy that has preceded and feels like nothing so much as superfluous, self-indulgent twaddle.Disappointing, Mr. Davies.