What was Andrew Davies thinking?! The novel ended on a note of such hope and optimism - yet from this new version we're left with a horrible image of George spreadeagled on a muddy battlefield! Why??
It totally ruined it for me - give me the 1985 version any day over this revisionist rubbish.
Really? That is ridiculous! Why mess with the source material like that? I couldn't watch this (see my reply to "Is this worth it"). I watched 5 minutes and changed it.
shareI quite liked the ending ... don't kill me! I thought it was bitter sweet and it showed their connection and I did not think for one moment that she had fallen for the coach driver ..
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I couldn't sleep so I decided to watch this version. It seemed so promising! Sinead Cusack, Sophie Thompson etc!!! how could you go wrong. Well oh, so wrong it was. What a disappointment!
Mr. Beeb eyeing Freddy/George gave me the creeps. The ending was supremely awful. I just couldn't believe it. Taking a lovely book and ruining it. Trying to update it to keep the modern watcher attached. They must all think we are idiots! If it doesn't have sex, homosexuality or death in it we won't like it. What has happened to the simple story being told??
Well I have to watch the movie now to erase this sad excuse for a remake from my mind!
Thanks for posting EM Forester update. Interesting read. Enjoyed it.
It’s good to dream
Well, writers make lots of notes while writing; some ideas make it to the final version and some don't. There's a reason why some notes and ideas are left in the scrap or shelfed away in the bottom of drawer. One is of course allow to dig up those thrown away tidbits to make a reinterpretation, but that wouldn't be an adaptation. And this reinterpretation is simply dreadful! Certainly the death idea didn't come from "Room without a View" that Forster wrote in 1958.
shareI will chisel a stake in for the minority, if there is one, who did not mind the ending too much and in fact sort of appreciated it. I know, no one will agree with me!!
I felt it was very Forster-esque and it led me to think of Where Angels Fear to Tread, where the heroine moves to Italy and marries the unworthy Italian.
Not many of Mr. Forster's characters enjoy happy endings and it seemed flukey that the Emerson's should fair differently. But I love his characters for this very reason. My friends will tell you that I have a love for the morbid. And I suppose this qualifies. :)
It is hard to part with an interpretation we love (and I do love the MI version very much). Mr. Davies must have been hard pressed to make this different from the MI version in some way. So I can see what his reasons were.
On the whole though, I think both movies missed what I felt (and maybe no-one else interpreted it this way) was the pivitol message of the story. Neither came accross for me in really turning to the light Lucy's frustration.
Maybe it's not truly Lucy's frustration per se. It is more the reader's frustration on her behalf. We meet her and see her living her life in the acceptable (if uncomfortable) social box, then witness her bursting out of it, only to have the person who encouraged her the most in her wildness, be upset with her for being wild. Truth Truth.
It stings, the truth. And I love to be stung! I wish either of these movies had pictured this better. But I like them both for different reasons, and so am happy to have both in my little library!
"I prefer to be unsociable and taciturn"
Im with you, Pooky, I didn't *love* the ending, but it certainly made me think, and appreciate it.
Instead of the Emmersons living a "happily ever after" which doesn't exist, it says 'you know what, you need to appreciate the time you have with the ones you love because you never know when they'll be gone' And more, it says 'there is life after death' At some point, George was going to die. He would most likely die before Lucy because of the age gap. Lucy would need to get on with life after this.
So whats so wrong with showing this? and Showing you can still find joy and love after joy and life...
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The ending was gawd-awful but the rest of it was pretty good, though nothing compared to the 1985 adaptation which is spectacular.
And I'm no prude, but the shagging at the end, was that really necessary? I got the idea of their passion all the way through the film - I didn't need it so graphically spelled out for me. It looked like a "ooo let's cram some sex in so people will watch it" type move. The Merchant Ivory version was much sexier, and I don't believe we were treated to rampant humping at any point in that.
I saw this 2007 version of the film recently and was shocked by the ending. I had a feeling something just wasn't right, and reading the posts here, I was right. So, I watched the earlier version and also read the book and I cannot imagine what Davies was thinking by changing the ending of the 2007 version so drastically. I mean that is more than artistic license, it is just plain insulting. Everything about the earlier version was perfect to this viewer, the script, the actors, the soundtrack, the costumes. I absolutely loved it. The only thing I really liked about the Davies version was Laurence Fox.