MovieChat Forums > A Room with a View (1986) Discussion > My Thoughts

My Thoughts

posted 13 years ago by jmbwithcats
12 replies | jump to latest

Sorry, I don't get it. Why all the love for A Room with a View (1985)? It had elements that are excellent, the music, the locations, a little bit of the dialog, Daniel Day-Lewis as the stuffy New Yorker cover pedant, but the story... I found rather boring.

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[–] Mandyjam 13 years ago

I suppose you have to be tuned in to this type of movie to enjoy it. The reason why "all the love for A Room with a View" is simply that not everyone's taste is the same. It is also partly a matter of education. If you are in the habit of savouring movies that are rather gentle and slow to evolve, then you enjoy this one immensely. If you are the sort of person who usually watches things with a clearly defined narrative, or a great deal of action, then you might find this positively boring. That doesn't mean that it IS boring, because other people are entranced by it!

"great minds think differently"

[–] vincent-desapio-265-744631 13 years ago

I agree with Mandyjam. If you like novels and movies that evolve like a finely-crafted novel you're more likely to love the movie. Otherwise, you're likely to find the movie's pace too slow. Personally, I like the slow pace because it allows a more complete character development and allows you to absorb the the sights, the sounds, the characters, etc. I find if the movie is too fast-paced, the characters are like cardboard - without depth or dimension.

[–] Hewso 13 years ago

This is a "character" story, not an "event" story.

With a film like this a lot of the enjoyment comes from being tuned in to subtle things that paint a detailed picture of the characters. If done right(and it was) this can give the viewer a deeper understanding of real people. For some people this can be extremely satisfying.

[–] Zuider_Zee 13 years ago

It sounds as though you were underwhelmed but perhaps a character study isn't for you. I enjoyed it overall but was particularly impressed with the performances, set and costume design and the cinematography.

[–] jmbwithcats 13 years ago

Just this particular character study.

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[–] Zuider_Zee 13 years ago

Perhaps you were like me in that I thought the story itself was very low-key. She's engaged to one man, meets another, falls in love and then decides to not marry her prior engagement. It does sort of have a "big whoopty do" quality about it.

[–] jmbwithcats 13 years ago

It seems to be about a time when people didn't marry for love, which is still to this day a relatively new concept, so I get it, I just didn't find it compelling, perhaps they could have made that impact better.

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www.kittysafe.net

[–] geoffrey-jackson 12 years ago

Sorry, I don't get it. Why all the love for A Room with a View (1985)? It had elements that are excellent, the music, the locations, a little bit of the dialog, Daniel Day-Lewis as the stuffy New Yorker cover pedant, but the story... I found rather boring.

Don't ask me. I wonder the same thing myself.

After just watching Howards End (1992) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104454/ and really enjoying it I was looking forward to A Room with a View but I was disappointed. Had I seen A Room with a View first then I would have not bothered with Howards End. What attracted me to Howards End were the actors Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. I saw them first in The Remains of the Day (1993) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107943/. I rated both other films 10/10. They were brilliant. All three films had the same director, costume designers, cinematographer and screenwriter. A Room with a View and Howards End had the same author.

I just couldn't relate to A Room with a View. There was no substance to the enigmatic characters. The story in the other films had a much longer time span. There were more mature characters also. A Room with a View seemed generally directed towards a less mature audience.

Rather than boring I would describe A Room with a View as tedious and tiresome.

5/10 Not good, not bad.

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[–] ToHelenBackAgain 11 years ago

I don't know about that. I'm no student of history, and I find the film uproarious. The contexts explain themselves quite well, I think.

But I've always adored the comedy of manners genre, since I was a little girl. This may have had something to do with being raised in a house stuffed to the sills with books of plays, Shakespeare, Coward, Wilde... I think it's a very particular brand of humor that just isn't for everyone.

"You drank too much!" "That's a thing?"