Why did Charlotte look so upset after reading the letter in the end?
Is she upset she doesn't have love or wasn't more of a free spirit in her youth?
Jackman / Chastain / DiCaprio / Smith
Yes, I believe so. I think she realized her life was wasted. "Poor Charlotte" may have thought she could have given a chance to happiness, just like Lucy did and wrote it in her letter. Remember Charlotte had an "adventure" in her past (so she told Eleanor Lavish) and let it all behind in the name of appearances and "good costumes". That was a very present theme in E. M. Forster's novels, BTW.
Even though in the book the ending scene is different, this whole Charlotte-life-wasted-feeling is clear there too, and the screenwriter was clever on illustrating it by writing the last scene that way.
I agree. I always get choked up during this scene. You can see the wasted life in her eyes--so distant, as if remembering things in her youth that never panned out. Also, she is in bed, with her hair down, looking a BIT like Lucy, but old now, beyond all that passion.
Sadder still is that the scene is juxtaposed with that of Lucy and George on their honeymoon, holding each other in the room with a view, kissing.
She deserves her revenge, and we deserve to die.
Remember at the picnic day outdoors when she is sitting with the novelist and wistfully talks of the countryside reminding her of Shropshire where she visited her friend?
It was a female friend and I wondered if we were witnessing her remembering a repressed same sex love adventure?