Ok, there was a sleepover, and I was trying to outlast the kiddos (foolish, I know) so I started watching a Masterpiece theater adaption of one of my favorite movies - A Room with a View. It was on PBS a few weeks back and was sitting on my DVR taking up space.
*Backstory* - the 1985 Merchant/Ivory film of "A Room with a View" - has got to be one of my favorite movies. I've watched it many times. I've got the VHS and the DVD, I've bought the book (but it still sits waiting to be read) - so I'm not to keen on a new version to start with but I figure "what the heck".
So it starts off with her in Italy alone. What? Where is Charlotte? I am confused. Then you kind of figure out that she is older, and she is alone. hmmmm. Then we flash back to the story i know. Ok. I let it go.
The new Lucy - she's good. I like her. The new George - he's got pretty big Julian Sands boots to fill - and he's a bit of a..., ok - he's a HUGE nerd. On a scale of 1-10 for romantic lead, I'm feeling a 2 - TOPS. He's the son of the guy who plays a believable rat in Harry Potter for goodness sakes. Ok, I let that go.
Then comes the big "kiss in the wheat field"- the most romantic part of the movie - and he misses her lips and hits her chin. (i watched it twice to be sure) ok - not even a good kisser and it bothers me. They must have done many takes and that was the best they could do? *sigh* Ok, I let THAT go.
So, then it goes on like it has before. Except at the end - they show them reuniting together when George is lying in the pond in a pool of blood. He sits right up, so I suppose it wasn't serious - but I am baffled. Was he trying to kill himself? Was this in the book? No explanation.
Next scene - they are in Italy again like the other movie - but her hair is long. hmm.
They switch from this scene to a dark scene of a dead George on a random battlefield. What? What? What? Was he a soldier? When the heck was this? What?!? Again, no explanation.
Then we see the Short haired Lucy (aha!) mourning him. And in her efforts to mourn him, she hooks up with the carriage driver from the earlier scene where she and George first kiss. RIGHT. She's moved on. Lovely. NOT. We spend the whole movie waiting for them to get together, and after a 10 second flash that he is dead we are ready for her to date. I don't think so!!
I thought perhaps this was in the book, and i was suddenly quite glad i had never read it. Turns out all this flash back crap was added by the guy who adapted the book based on some after the fact musings of the author - which from what i have read, seems debatable.
Seems someone asked him how they thought Lucy & George would turn out and he said they had a few kids and he died later on in the war. And you know - he might have just been having a bad day and was tired of the freaking question. I don't think he intended the end of this movie to be a complete downer with her flirting with the carriage driver. Just ruined the WHOLE.DARN.THING.
So, this version promptly got deleted from my dvr never to be replayed. Bleh.
The Boston Globe seems to agree with me:
This room looks on a different view
3 comments:
Enjoyed your review, and could imagine I'd have the same reaction!! I will avoid this weirdo version because I'm a simple girl and ... I confess: I'm a sucker for romance. The kind that ends up happily! Maybe I was bought up on Disney but hey - a nice buzz is not a bad thing!!
PS - how much do you adore Freddie?! (in the good one)
heehee
gil
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I though I was the only one who detested this version? What happened to George and his father being pacifistss? The way the book and the original film set it up, I would have pegged George for a war deserter before he would have fought. Also what goes with the random sex scene after the fake suicide?
The whole film was just one big middle finger to E. M Forster.
Don't tell me . . . Andrew Davies, right? This guy has made more changes to literary works than Hollywood has in the past six to seven decades. What is up with him?
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