I am a huge fan of Andrew Davies and his adaptations of the great classics. He has the knack of distilling the story and emotions wonderfully well for the medium in which he works, and if at times he seems to over emphasise the seething emotions under the bustle or whatever, we forgive him (after all he was the one who showed Colin Firth in a wet shirt to the world. Need I say more...)
However, I do take issue with him changing the ending of Room with a View which I have just finished watching. It made a wonderfully neat tidy finish to the new TV film and he says that he based it on a note EM Forster wrote some years after writing the book, but even that note has been changed. I am not going to go into detail as readers of this post may not all have seen the film and it will probably not be on the other side of the pond for a while yet.
Apart from this aberration, I thought this new version was wonderful. Sophy Thompson was excellent as Cousin Charlotte, the part taken so wonderfully by Maggie Smith in the Merchant Ivory film. Laurence Fox is perfect as Cecil and Elaine Cassidy as Lucy was more more believable than Helena Bonham-Carter who I have always felt had not yet learned to act when she starred in the earlier movie, good though she was. Timothy Spall was touching and lovable as Mr Emerson and George Emerson was played beautifully by his real life son, Rafe Spall, who was The Wide Sargasso Sea earlier in the year. He was excellent in both.
It is impossible not to refer back to the earlier film with its stellar cast, including Judi Dench, which is one of my all time favourites and will always remain so, but this new version can stand alongside it with pride.
So apart from the change at the end, I loved it and look forward to seeing it again when the DVD is available, which I am sure it will be very soon.
