Required Research: A Room With a View

Before venturing into the bellissima chaos of your wedding adventure, one must set the tone of mystery and romance. There is no better way to jump into this world than to (re)watch Merchant-Ivory’s exquisite A Room with a View from 1985.

Based upon the 1908 novel by E.M. Forster. A Room with a View, the film is set in both the Florentine and the English countrysides. Lucy Honeychurch (Helena Bonham Carter), a young Englishwoman, makes her first visit to Florence, Italy in the early 1900’s with her spinster aunt, Charlotte Bartlett (Dame Maggie Smith, most recently of PBS’s Downton Abbey), who chaperones her young niece with a discerning eye . There, she meets a quiet yet eccentric young man named George Emerson (Julian Sands). Upon her return to England, Lucy must decide whether to follow through with her marriage to her stoic fiance, Cecil ( a very young Daniel Day-Lewis), or follow her heart and her growing attraction to George. Naturally, starry eyed love, broken hearts, and confusion ensue.