Where Angels Fear to Tread (movie)
Encyclopedia
Where Angels Fear to Tread is a 1991
British
drama film
directed by Charles Sturridge
. The screenplay by Sturridge, Tim Sullivan
, and Derek Granger is based on the 1905 novel of the same title
by E. M. Forster
.
town of Monteriano
with her young friend Caroline Abbott. There she falls in love with both the countryside and Gino Carella, a handsome man considerably younger and much less wealthy than herself, and she decides to stay. Appalled by her behaviour and concerned about the future of her granddaughter Irma, her strait-laced mother-in-law dispatches her son Philip to Italy
to convince her to return home, but by the time he arrives Lilia and Gino have wed. He and Caroline return home, unable to forgive themselves for not putting an end to what they see as a clearly unsuitable marriage.
Lilia is startled to discover her desire for independence is at odds with Gino's need to be the unquestioned head of the household, and she is shocked when he becomes physically abusive in order to clarify his position. Their relationship becomes less volatile when Lilia becomes pregnant, but she dies in childbirth, leaving her grieving husband with an infant son to raise with the help of his aging mother.
When word of Lilia's death reaches England, Caroline decides to return to Italy
to save the boy from what surely will be a difficult life. Not wanting to be outdone, or considered any less moral or less concerned than Caroline for the child's welfare, Lilia's mother-in-law sends Philip and his priggish spinster sister Harriet to Monteriano to obtain custody of the infant and bring him back to Sawston
, where he can receive what she perceives to be a proper upbringing and education. Everything about the journey - especially the heat, the uncomfortable accommodations, and her difficulty communicating with the locals - distresses repressed and xenophobic
Harriet, but Philip begins to find himself attracted to everything that appealed to Lilia. He also begins to sympathise with Gino, leaving Harriet to take matters into her own hands and make a decision that leads to tragic consequences.
of the New York Times observed the film "has been faithfully but unimaginatively directed by Charles Sturridge, whose . . . principal asset here is a very fine cast. The actors perform flawlessly even when the staging is too pedestrian for the ideas being expressed, and when the film's flat, uninflected style allows some of those ideas to be overlooked or thrown away . . . Mr. Sturridge's assault on his material is strictly frontal, with a screenplay . . . that adequately summarizes the novel but rarely approaches its depth. Although the film stumbles unimaginatively over some of Forster's more elaborate scenes . . . and although it moves gracelessly back and forth between Italy and England, its most significant lapse is visual. Tuscany, as photographed by Michael Coulter, is never as ravishing as it deserves to be either for strictly scenic purposes or for illustrating Forster's view of Italy's magnetic allure. Even so, the material and the performances often rise above these limitations. At its occasional best, Where Angels Fear to Tread even captures the transcendent aspects of Forster's tale."
Roger Ebert
of the Chicago Sun-Times
said the film "is rather unconvincing as a story and a movie; Forster had not yet learned to bury his themes completely within the action of a novel, as he does so brilliantly in Howards End
. There are also some problems with the casting - especially that of Giovanni Guidelli, who never seems like a real character and is sometimes dangerously close to being a comic Italian. The tug-of-war over the baby is uncomfortably melodrama
tic, and the whole closing sequence of the movie seems written, not lived. There are some good things, especially Mirren's widow, tasting passion and love for the first time, and Davis' sister, a prototype for all those dreadnought British spinsters for whom false pride is a virtue, not a sin."
Rita Kempley of the Washington Post thought Sturridge "seems less like a driven director than an impersonal subtitler. He takes no liberties with the material; he merely translates the story from page to screen. On the whole, it's rather like reading without the effort of holding the book. For many, this will do quite nicely, thank you. Others will find it all too stranglingly Anglophilic
, which is perhaps the point."
Variety
called the film "a far more rewarding dip into the E.M. Forster tub than some of its predecessors" with "none of the top-heaviness of David Lean
's A Passage to India
or the starchiness of Merchant-Ivory
's A Room with a View
."
Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly
graded the film C, noting "except for Helen Mirren's brief, mischievous performance . . . the movie remains frustratingly distant from its characters' inner lives."
Time Out New York said, "The performances and scenery cannot be faulted . . . But though things connect much better than they did in Sturridge's A Handful of Dust, the screenplay degenerates into a static succession of talking heads. Sturridge's work still seems to be TV masquerading as cinema."
for her performance in both this film and Husbands and Wives
.
released the film in anamorphic widescreen
format on Region 1 DVD on November 7, 2006. The only bonus feature is the original trailer.
1991 in film
The year 1991 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*April 28 - Bonnie Raitt marries actor Michael O'Keefe in New York* Terminator 2: Judgment Day, became one of the landmarks for science fiction action films with its groundbreaking visual effects from Industrial Light & Magic.*November...
British
Cinema of the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom has had a major influence on modern cinema. The first moving pictures developed on celluloid film were made in Hyde Park, London in 1889 by William Friese Greene, a British inventor, who patented the process in 1890. It is generally regarded that the British film industry...
drama film
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
directed by Charles Sturridge
Charles Sturridge
Charles B. G. Sturridge is an English screenwriter, producer, stage, television and film director.-Personal life:Sturridge was born in London, England to Alyson Bowman Vaughan and Jerome Sturridge. He was educated at Stonyhurst College...
. The screenplay by Sturridge, Tim Sullivan
Tim Sullivan (British filmmaker)
Tim Sullivan is a British film and television director and screenwriter, known for his work with Granada Television and his feature film Jack and Sarah .- Background :...
, and Derek Granger is based on the 1905 novel of the same title
Where Angels Fear to Tread
Where Angels Fear to Tread is a novel by E. M. Forster, originally entitled Monteriano. The title comes from a line in Alexander Pope's An Essay on Criticism: "For fools rush in where angels fear to tread"....
by E. M. Forster
E. M. Forster
Edward Morgan Forster OM, CH was an English novelist, short story writer, essayist and librettist. He is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th-century British society...
.
Plot
Recently widowed and anxious to escape the clutches of her oppressively meddlesome in-laws, free-spirited Lilia Herriton travels to the hillside TuscanTuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
town of Monteriano
Monteriano
Monteriano is a fictional Tuscan hill town. It was the original title and is the principal locale of E. M. Forster's 1905 novel Where Angels Fear to Tread. The author describes the town in an incomplete faux entry to Central Italy by Baedeker as follows:—The location of Monteriano is not...
with her young friend Caroline Abbott. There she falls in love with both the countryside and Gino Carella, a handsome man considerably younger and much less wealthy than herself, and she decides to stay. Appalled by her behaviour and concerned about the future of her granddaughter Irma, her strait-laced mother-in-law dispatches her son Philip to Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
to convince her to return home, but by the time he arrives Lilia and Gino have wed. He and Caroline return home, unable to forgive themselves for not putting an end to what they see as a clearly unsuitable marriage.
Lilia is startled to discover her desire for independence is at odds with Gino's need to be the unquestioned head of the household, and she is shocked when he becomes physically abusive in order to clarify his position. Their relationship becomes less volatile when Lilia becomes pregnant, but she dies in childbirth, leaving her grieving husband with an infant son to raise with the help of his aging mother.
When word of Lilia's death reaches England, Caroline decides to return to Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
to save the boy from what surely will be a difficult life. Not wanting to be outdone, or considered any less moral or less concerned than Caroline for the child's welfare, Lilia's mother-in-law sends Philip and his priggish spinster sister Harriet to Monteriano to obtain custody of the infant and bring him back to Sawston
Sawston
Sawston is a large village in Cambridgeshire in England, situated on the River Cam seven miles south of Cambridge. It has a population of 7,150...
, where he can receive what she perceives to be a proper upbringing and education. Everything about the journey - especially the heat, the uncomfortable accommodations, and her difficulty communicating with the locals - distresses repressed and xenophobic
Xenophobia
Xenophobia is defined as "an unreasonable fear of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange". It comes from the Greek words ξένος , meaning "stranger," "foreigner" and φόβος , meaning "fear."...
Harriet, but Philip begins to find himself attracted to everything that appealed to Lilia. He also begins to sympathise with Gino, leaving Harriet to take matters into her own hands and make a decision that leads to tragic consequences.
Cast
- Rupert GravesRupert GravesRupert Graves is an English film, television and theatre actor. He is best known for his role as DI Lestrade in the critically acclaimed television series Sherlock.-Early life:...
..... Philip Herriton - Helena Bonham CarterHelena Bonham CarterHelena Bonham Carter is an English actress of film, stage, and television. She made her acting debut in a television adaptation of K. M. Peyton's A Pattern of Roses before winning her first film role as the titular character in Lady Jane...
..... Caroline Abbott - Judy DavisJudy DavisJudy Davis is an Australian actress best known for her roles in Husbands and Wives, Barton Fink, A Passage to India and in the TV miniseries Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows....
..... Harriet Herriton - Giovanni Guidelli ..... Gino Carella
- Helen MirrenHelen MirrenDame Helen Mirren, DBE is an English actor. She has won an Academy Award for Best Actress, four SAG Awards, four BAFTAs, three Golden Globes, four Emmy Awards, and two Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Awards.-Early life and family:...
..... Lilia Herriton - Barbara JeffordBarbara JeffordBarbara Jefford, OBE is a British Shakespearean actress best known for her theatrical performances with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Old Vic and the National Theatre, and her role as Molly Bloom in the 1967 film of James Joyce's Ulysses.-Early life:Jefford was born Mary Barbara Jefford in...
..... Mrs. Herriton - Sophie Kullmann ..... Irma
Critical reception
Janet MaslinJanet Maslin
Janet Maslin is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. She served as the Times film critic from 1977–1999.- Biography :...
of the New York Times observed the film "has been faithfully but unimaginatively directed by Charles Sturridge, whose . . . principal asset here is a very fine cast. The actors perform flawlessly even when the staging is too pedestrian for the ideas being expressed, and when the film's flat, uninflected style allows some of those ideas to be overlooked or thrown away . . . Mr. Sturridge's assault on his material is strictly frontal, with a screenplay . . . that adequately summarizes the novel but rarely approaches its depth. Although the film stumbles unimaginatively over some of Forster's more elaborate scenes . . . and although it moves gracelessly back and forth between Italy and England, its most significant lapse is visual. Tuscany, as photographed by Michael Coulter, is never as ravishing as it deserves to be either for strictly scenic purposes or for illustrating Forster's view of Italy's magnetic allure. Even so, the material and the performances often rise above these limitations. At its occasional best, Where Angels Fear to Tread even captures the transcendent aspects of Forster's tale."
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
of the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
said the film "is rather unconvincing as a story and a movie; Forster had not yet learned to bury his themes completely within the action of a novel, as he does so brilliantly in Howards End
Howards End
Howards End is a novel by E. M. Forster, first published in 1910, which tells a story of class struggle in turn-of-the-century England. The main theme is the difficulties, troubles, and also the benefits of relationships between members of different social classes...
. There are also some problems with the casting - especially that of Giovanni Guidelli, who never seems like a real character and is sometimes dangerously close to being a comic Italian. The tug-of-war over the baby is uncomfortably melodrama
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
tic, and the whole closing sequence of the movie seems written, not lived. There are some good things, especially Mirren's widow, tasting passion and love for the first time, and Davis' sister, a prototype for all those dreadnought British spinsters for whom false pride is a virtue, not a sin."
Rita Kempley of the Washington Post thought Sturridge "seems less like a driven director than an impersonal subtitler. He takes no liberties with the material; he merely translates the story from page to screen. On the whole, it's rather like reading without the effort of holding the book. For many, this will do quite nicely, thank you. Others will find it all too stranglingly Anglophilic
Anglophilia
An Anglophile is a person who is fond of English culture or, more broadly, British culture. Its antonym is Anglophobe.-Definition:The word comes from Latin Anglus "English" via French, and is ultimately derived from Old English Englisc "English" + Ancient Greek φίλος - philos, "friend"...
, which is perhaps the point."
Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
called the film "a far more rewarding dip into the E.M. Forster tub than some of its predecessors" with "none of the top-heaviness of David Lean
David Lean
Sir David Lean CBE was an English film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor best remembered for big-screen epics such as The Bridge on the River Kwai , Lawrence of Arabia ,...
's A Passage to India
A Passage to India (film)
A Passage to India is a 1984 drama film written and directed by David Lean. The screenplay is based on the 1924 novel of the same title by E. M. Forster and the 1960 play by Santha Rama Rau that was inspired by the novel....
or the starchiness of Merchant-Ivory
Merchant Ivory Productions
Merchant Ivory Productions is a film company founded in 1961 by producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory. Their films were for the most part produced by the former, directed by the latter, and scripted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, with the noted exception of a few films. The films were often...
's A Room with a View
A Room with a View (film)
A Room with a View is a 1985 British drama film directed by James Ivory and produced by Ismail Merchant. The film is a close adaptation of E. M...
."
Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
graded the film C, noting "except for Helen Mirren's brief, mischievous performance . . . the movie remains frustratingly distant from its characters' inner lives."
Time Out New York said, "The performances and scenery cannot be faulted . . . But though things connect much better than they did in Sturridge's A Handful of Dust, the screenplay degenerates into a static succession of talking heads. Sturridge's work still seems to be TV masquerading as cinema."
Awards and nominations
Judy Davis won the Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting ActressBoston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress
-1980s:-1990s:-2000s:-2010s:...
for her performance in both this film and Husbands and Wives
Husbands and Wives
Husbands and Wives is a 1992 American drama film directed and written by Woody Allen. The films stars Allen, Mia Farrow, Sydney Pollack, Judy Davis, Juliette Lewis, Liam Neeson and Blythe Danner. It was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and Best Writing,...
.
DVD release
Image EntertainmentImage Entertainment
Image Entertainment, Inc. is an independent licensee, producer and distributor of home entertainment programming and film & television productions in North America, with approximately 3,000 exclusive DVD titles and approximately 250 exclusive CD titles in domestic release, and approximately 450...
released the film in anamorphic widescreen
Anamorphic widescreen
Anamorphic widescreen, when applied to DVD manufacture, is a video process that horizontally squeezes a widescreen image so that it can be stored in a standard 4:3 aspect ratio DVD image frame. Compatible playback equipment can then re-expand the horizontal dimension to show the original widescreen...
format on Region 1 DVD on November 7, 2006. The only bonus feature is the original trailer.