A Room with a View

Adapted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala from the novel by E.M. Forster, A Room with a View is a shining example of Merchant-Ivory's ability to achieve maximum quality and opulence at minimum cost. Set during the Edwardian Era, the film stars Helena Bonham Carter as Lucy Honeychurch, who like all proper young British ladies is compelled to tour Europe in the company of an older chaperone — in this instance, her spinster cousin Charlotte Bartlett (Maggie Smith). While in Italy, the ladies make the acquaintance of a wide variety of personalities; the most fascinating of their fellow tourists — at least in Lucy's eyes — is free-spirited George Emerson (Julian Sands). Aware that her cousin is becoming too familiar with Emerson, Charlotte demands that Lucy return to England posthaste. Lucy complacently settles for the tiresomely traditional courtship of nerdish Cecil Vyse (Daniel Day-Lewis) — and then Mr. Emerson moves into the neighborhood. Lucy now finds herself on the horns of a dilemma: Should she opt for a safe, proper marriage to Cecil, or the bohemian unpredictability of the charismatic Emerson? A winner of three Academy Awards, A Room with a View is not what one could call fast-moving, but fans of the Merchant-Ivory team will enjoy luxuriating in the film's leisurely pace and stimulating cast of characters. — Hal Erickson

Though they had been making films together for over two decades, director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant didn't reach widespread popular or critical success until 1986's A Room With a View. Adapted by their frequent collaborator Ruth Prawer Jhabvala from one of E.M. Forster's lighter novels, the movie is a perfectly weighted, gorgeously staged comedy of manners. In her second film, Helena Bonham Carter made quite an impression as Lucy, and she spent much of the decade typecast in stuffy period-piece roles. Daniel Day Lewis provides spot-on work as the uptight, priggish suitor Cecil, a marked contrast to his almost polar-opposite role in Stephen Frears's My Beautiful Laundrette, which marked him as a new actor of unusual versatility. He would become a sex symbol two years later in The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Room was nominated for eight Academy Awards and brought home three, including one for Jhabvala's adaptation. — Brendon Hanley