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Rating:  - Disappointed!
I was disappointed in this movie. I was hoping for something better with this cast, but the story line did not do the actors justice. I do not recommend it.
Rating:  - Very Enjoyable
While sad, this is a lovely movie. Well acted and beautiful to look at.
Rating:  - Terrible transfer to DVD.
This is one of my favorite movies, and I was thrilled that it was finally available on DVD. But what a disappointment! The disk plays like a worn-out VHS tape. 5 stars for the movie, but no stars for this DVD transfer.
Rating: - Faithful adaptation of Forster's first novel
This filmed version of WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD is quite faithful to the novel. It is well acted especially by the three female leads - Helen Mirren as the doomed Lilia, Helena Bonham-Carter, looking less attractive than usual, playing the sensible parson's daughter, Caroline, and Judy Davis as the truly horrid spinster Harriet. As in the short novel the contrast between the restrained, judgmental Brits and the passionate warm hearted Italians is a main focus of the story. Perhaps the film deserves more than three stars but like in the book I find the tragic climax caused by the inept meddling of Harriet so maddening that is greatly lessens my enjoyment of the story. To make matters worse Gino's ability to forgive these awful Brits sickens rather than uplifts me. I actually feel guilty for laughing at the genuinely funny moments at the beginning of the story after the awfulness occurrs. And I take another star off because the film really needs to be subtitled due to the soft tones of the speakers as well as the British and Italian accents difficult for American ears to fully understand.
Rating: - Overlooked fine adaptation of Forster's first novel
WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD got a bit lost in the shuffle of the film adaptations of E. M. Forster's novels that came out in the 1990s. Neither as much of a crowd-pleaser as A ROOM WITH A VIEW, as appealling to a gay audience at MAURICE, or as dignified and prestigious as A PASSAGE TO INDIA, this film instead featured the stars of each of the previous three Forster adaptations--Helena Bonham-Carter, Rupert Graves, and Judy Davis--and cast them very atypically in roles that seemed like poor fits for them each at the time but now in hindsight show off each of their considerable ranges. The widowed Lilia Herriton (the wonderful Helen Mirren, in a terrific performance) travels to Italy while chaperoning her younger neighbor Caroline Aboott (Bonham-Carter) on her first trip there, and marries a handsome young Italian man mostly to escape her interfering in-laws back in suburban London; they dispatch her brother-in-law Philip (Graves) to rescue her, but he is rebuffed by Lilia and her virile lover. But Lilia is miserable in her new mismatched marriage and dies soon after in childbirth; Philip and his puritanical sister Harriet (Davis) then return to Italy with Miss Abbott to get Lilia's baby at any cost. The story has often been classified as a comedy, despite the tragic deaths that occur in it, and the director, Charles Sturridge, plays up the comic elements of it considerably. Judy Davis dominates this film (as she does every film she's ever been in) with a raucous performance as a hysterical prude that is actually nicely shaded; while Bonham-Carter does much with the tough role of the unsteady Miss Abbott. Sturridge probably does not take as much advantage of the beautiful medieval towers of San Gimignano, where the work was filmed, as he should have, and relies too much on conversation (as might be expected from a director who has worked largely in television). But the film has nonetheless aged beautifully over the years (particularly since Davis's wild turn here is now less unexpected, and can be seen as more of a piece with her other later comic performances instead of as an aberration from her more subtle earlier dramatic work), and it deserves rediscovery in an American DVD version.
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