Where Angels Fear to Tread *** (1991, Helen Mirren, Helena Bonham Carter, Judy Davis, Rupert Graves, Barbara Jefford) – Classic Movie Review 2642

Director Charles Sturridge, maker of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited (the 1981 mini-series) and A Handful of Dust (1988), challenges the Ismail Merchant- James Ivory team head on here with an E M Forster adaptation in 1991.

Where Angels Fear to Tread is a gorgeously filmed, ideally cast and beautifully acted version of yet another E M Forster novel, this one from 1905, which is s good thing. However, Sturridge can’t quite find the incisiveness, emotion and conviction that the Merchant-Ivory team brought to A Room with a View, Maurice and Howards End.

Helen Mirren gives the standout performance as free-spirited Lilia Herriton, an English widow abroad who travels to the hillside Tuscan town of Monteriano with her young friend Caroline Abbott (Helena Bonham Carter). 

There she falls in love with both the countryside and Tuscan dentist’s young son Gino Carella (Giovanni Guidelli), a handsome man considerably younger and much less wealthy than herself, and she refuses to come home.

Barbara Jefford also makes a powerful impression as her strong, unbending mother-in-law Mrs Herriton, who sends her son-in-law Philip Herriton (Rupert Graves) to Italy to sort things out and convince Lilia to return home. But by the time he arrives Lilia and Gino are married.

Oozing with romantic escapist Edwardian trimmings, elegant retro atmosphere and breath-taking views of Italy, Where Angels Fear to Tread is hugely and richly enjoyable. Sturridge and producer Derek Granger may not hit the heritage movie jackpot but they make a worthy successor to their A Handful of Dust.

Also in the cast are Judy Davis, Sophie Kullman, Thomas Wheatley, Eileen Davies, Vass Anderson, Siria Betti and Anna Lelio.

The film was shot on location in San Gimignano in the province of Siena.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2642

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