- Actors: Helena Bonham Carter, Judy Davis, Rupert Graves, Helen Mirren, Barbara Jefford
- Directors: Charles Sturridge
- Writers: Charles Sturridge, Derek Granger, E.M. Forster, Tim Sullivan
- Producers: Derek Granger, Giovanna Romagnoli, Jeffrey Taylor
- Language English, Italian
- Classification: PG
- Run Time: 116 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
- ASIN: B00008T3OV
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 20,085 in Video (See Top 100 in Video)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
183 of 187 people found the following review helpful
Format:VHS Tape
"Where Angels Fear To Tread" was one of the earliest E M Forster novels, and in it you can trace the same theme that ran through his more well-known work "A Room With A View", i.e the Edwardian English and their love of Italy, and the freedom it gave them compared to the strictures of back home. Helen Mirren plays a widow who goes off on holiday to Italy, meets a man much younger than herself, and to the horror of her straitlaced in-laws back home, decides to marry him. Mirren soon finds though that marriage in Italy is, if possible, even more confining than back in Blighty. Even going for a walk on your own can seem an outrageous thing for a respectable married Italian woman to do. When she dies giving birth, the family back home are determined that the baby should be brought up in England and delegate the only man of the family, a somewhat dismayed Rupert Graves, to go over to Italy and fetch the baby back.
Accompanied by his waspish sister and a repressed spinster friend (an excellent Helena Bonham Carter, acting dowdy for a change), he sets off with great reluctance to Italy. Once there though he falls under the spell of the country, bewitched by the climate, the beauty of the countryside, the free-and-easy atmosphere, and the exuberant opera put on with great zest in the village. He becomes increasingly reluctant to separate the baby from his young father, and when an attempt is made to do so tragedy unfolds.
This is quite a charming little film in many ways, and E M Forster finds won't be disappointed at all. Graves is splendid as the straitlaced young man who finds himself beguiled and disturbed (in more ways than one) by the life he finds in Italy. Helena Bonham Carter makes a great pairing with him, as she too yearns to leave behind her respectable spinster image and throw caution to the wind.
Accompanied by his waspish sister and a repressed spinster friend (an excellent Helena Bonham Carter, acting dowdy for a change), he sets off with great reluctance to Italy. Once there though he falls under the spell of the country, bewitched by the climate, the beauty of the countryside, the free-and-easy atmosphere, and the exuberant opera put on with great zest in the village. He becomes increasingly reluctant to separate the baby from his young father, and when an attempt is made to do so tragedy unfolds.
This is quite a charming little film in many ways, and E M Forster finds won't be disappointed at all. Graves is splendid as the straitlaced young man who finds himself beguiled and disturbed (in more ways than one) by the life he finds in Italy. Helena Bonham Carter makes a great pairing with him, as she too yearns to leave behind her respectable spinster image and throw caution to the wind.
26 of 26 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
This may be E.M. Forster's first novel but it is a faithful adaptation and a very fine film. I don't see what others finding lacking in this excellent motion picture. The cast works marvelously together. Helena Bonham Carter gives a very superb performance acting against her usual more glamourous roles. Rupert Graves and Judy Davis are excellent as the son and daughter of the great Barbara Jefford who is extremely memorable as the manipulating mother-in-law of Helen Mirren. Judy Davis is extraordinary as a mirror image of Barbara Jefford without the latter's cunning devices.
The story is captivating and the scenes, costumes and direction are all first rate. I find that this film is of great quality and belongs perfectly well with the other E.M. Forster adaptations. Perhaps some are biased because this isn't marked Ivory Merchant? I wouldn't know that it wasn't Ivory Merchant. It is of equal quality. The direction, script, and actors make this story very plausible. It would have been a greater box office success but it was not publisied as much as "Howard's End". I still find it a superb film and highly recommend it.
The story is captivating and the scenes, costumes and direction are all first rate. I find that this film is of great quality and belongs perfectly well with the other E.M. Forster adaptations. Perhaps some are biased because this isn't marked Ivory Merchant? I wouldn't know that it wasn't Ivory Merchant. It is of equal quality. The direction, script, and actors make this story very plausible. It would have been a greater box office success but it was not publisied as much as "Howard's End". I still find it a superb film and highly recommend it.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Fans of the better known "Forsters" such as Maurice, A Room with a View, the works of Merchant and Ivory, and fairly similar A Passage to India, may be quite disappointed with this much more quiet and less colourful production. The story-line also offers less of a twist - this is EM Forster's first novel and he was still learning his trade. Still the movie is well worth seeing - the story and the beautiful images in dusky sepias as if taken from old photographs will keep enthralled you in front of the telly if only you can accept that the world changed immensely within the last century. A big bonus is a chance to see world-famous actors in roles not exactly identical with their current careers.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
From The South
As other reviewers on Amazon have noted, it is significant that the story is mainly set in Italy, being the first country one comes to from the UK which has no northern exposure... Read more
Published 18 months ago by Ian Millard
where angels fear to tread
I remember reading and enjoying the novel some 30 years ago and, personally having something of a Forster renaissance, it prompted me to acquire this film - (however though you... Read more
Published 22 months ago by I. R. Munday
WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD
I had high expectations of this film; never judge a book (or a dvd)by its cover!
The film starts off okay but as soon as the film jumps to the sequences in Italy it declines... Read more
The film starts off okay but as soon as the film jumps to the sequences in Italy it declines... Read more
Published on 5 Jan 2008 by S. Johnson
Terrible soundtrack and somehow not quite right
This was a slightly disappointing film which does not achieve the excellence that Charles Sturridge is so famed for with Brideshead Revisited. Read more
Published on 22 Aug 2006 by Jon Freeman
Where Angels Fear To Dread
Released between Merchant- Ivory's versions of two other EM Forster novels, A Room with A View and Howard's End, I always thought that WAFTT was also made by the talented duo but... Read more
Published on 26 May 2006 by Greg Farefield-Rose
Where angels fear to tread
This film may be packed full of great stars but even they can't turn this far fetched story into a vaguely believable and watchable film. Read more
Published on 28 Jan 2006
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