A Room With A View?

I remember going to see the original Merchant Ivory production at the little art house theater in my town with my mom and Grandmother. I was 11, and it utterly entranced me. That was a pretty formative adolescent experience for me. I was into sewing at the time and even made myself a complete Lucy Honeychurch outfit, I so wanted to be Helena Bonham-Carter in that movie.

So it's no surprise I couldn't resist the new Masterpiece Theater production. At first I was going to watch just a few minutes while I folded the laundry, but within the first couple of scenes I was completely sucked in. Some days are not meant to be days where one accomplishes much in the way of contract work. (Thankfully, there is always tomorrow for that.)

I should start off on the positives because (fair warning) the negatives are f devastating. I liked the actors who played Lucy and George, and I was amazed that I could like anyone other than Julian Sands in the role. It intrigued me that they sought to deal with the sexual and class themes more openly--indeed blatantly in some parts--which is a real contrast from the original. But I could not and will not reconcile myself to the new "alternative" ending. WARNING SPOILERS LIE AHEAD: George dies in WWI and, at the very end, the film alludes to a relationship between Lucy and the carriage driver who had escorted them to the countryside ten years earlier! What is this? Some attempt to pin a literary ending onto the novel to make it more . . . more what, I ask? I can't conceive of it.

Thankfully, I've watched Buffy Season 6 and have much practice mentally rewriting terrible directorial choices.