Robert P. Laurence

San Diego Television

"A Room With A View" is viewed anew on PBS

By Robert P. Laurence
Posted on Apr 10 2008
Last updated Apr 11 2008

If PBS’s venerable and much-honored “Masterpiece Theatre” wants to freshen up its image, rearrange its theme music, add more contemporary stories to its dramatic mix, bring on Gillian Anderson as host, that’s all fine. No complaints here.

But not all change is good. Change is especially not good when the ending of one of the literary landmarks that form the very foundation of TV’s greatest and longest-running anthology series, now called simply “Masterpiece,” is trifled with.

That’s what screenwriter Andrew Davies has done with E.M. Forster’s “A Room With A View.” Forster wrote his novel in 1908, but Davies has willy-nilly advanced the action to 1912. Not insignificantly, those four years move the story closer to the carnage of World War I, and allow Davies to write his own new, post-war ending and tack it like a paper donkey tail to Forster’s delicately wrought narrative. (“A Room With A View” airs at 9-10:30 p.m. Sunday, April 13, on KPBS/Cable 11.)

One of the charms of Forster’s irresistible romance, after all, is that it’s set in dreamy, bucolic Edwardian England, long before the clouds of war were building on the horizons of Europe. It may have been a pre-war novel, but Forster didn’t know it was a pre-war novel. To make it deliberately so at this late date can only be taken as an act of arrogant hubris on Davies’ part.

“I wanted to do something fresh with this adaptation,” he says on the PBS “Masterpiece” Web site, explaining that he began with Forster’s 50-years-later musings on what might have happened to his characters in the years after the ending of his novel. But Forster didn’t call his publisher, roll a fresh piece of paper into his typewriter and revise his book. He, at least, knew better.

In another, less drastic change by Davies, the story now begins in 1922, with Lucy Honeychurch (Elaine Cassidy) returning to the Italian hotel where it all began. All that follows is flashback. As always with these English productions, the scenery is sumptuous, the settings lavish, the acting impeccable. Longtime fans of "Masterpiece Theatre" will find nothing amiss. Cassidy's performance holds up the enterprise with the strength of a tent pole, illuminates it with the brightness of a field of spring flowers.

Forster’s tale is a fairly conventional one, all about a young woman who recognizes early on that she’s in love with one young man, but tries her damnedest to fight the symptoms and convince herself she loves someone else more acceptable to society. As happens so frequently in British stories, rigid class consciousness is at the root of her dilemma.

Lucy is a woman conflicted. She’s spunky, but she’s no revolutionary. Not quite aristocracy, she’s upper middle class and determined to remain so.

She and several more Brits are stopping at a hotel in Florence while on a tour of Italy. Among them are the cheerfully working class Mr. Emerson and his son, George, a railway clerk. They’re played wonderfully by the that sturdy old character man Tim Spalls and his real-life son, the considerably more handsome Rafe.

All of them live in a time when the observation that someone has “advanced ideas” is not meant as a compliment. So for one more reason, the genially socialistic Emersons are considered not quite quite.

Lucy nevertheless is attracted. But she meets with disapproval on all sides, particularly from her prim, easily-shocked chaperone, Charlotte (Sophie Thompson).

Back home, Lucy gets engaged to the more socially suitable Cecil Vyse (Laurence Fox), a fellow given to making droll, derogatory observations about everyone around him, who lounges about forever wrapped in wreaths of cigarette smoke, who blithely admits he’s “good for nothing but books.”

But young George isn’t easily dissuaded, even after Lucy makes a public show of ordering him away.

By now you’ve guessed how things end, at least in Forster’s original tale. My advice: to avoid Davies’ extra ending turn off the set about two minutes after Lucy jumps into the pond.

About the author: Robert P. Laurence was television critic at the San Diego Union-Tribune for 21 years. He previously wrote about politics, jazz, rock 'n' roll and all manner of news. He graduated in journalism from San Francisco State University, and earned an M.A. in political science at San Jose State. He's lived in San Diego since 1971.
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Comments

Posted by K	May 7, 2008
The Ivory/Merchant production of "A Room With A View" holds a special place in my heart but I was open-minded watching this adaptation. Instead of being uplifted by the ending with this one, I was so depressed. It's an interesting take on the ending but I think I would rather have it end happily.

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