I am not a big fan of costume dramas. But I found this film by James Ivory more than tolerable. It's very playful and fun, as a contrast to the stiff upper lips it portrays. Bonham Carter makes a pleasant to watch debut. She looks really nice in those dresses. Real star of the film is almost unrecognizable Daniel Day-Lewis. He creates character of immensely enjoyable and charismatic geeky snob. Movie is shot very lightly, and there are lots of scenes that show the beauty of the old Europe.

More than a great love story. It's both a lighthearted and deeply impassioned inspirational lesson about life.

Good film.

Witty, self-effacing, and completely indulgent, then shifts to truth.

Day-Lewis and Maggie Smith are simply delightful here, most notably for their subtle comedic turns. These performances could veer off into mockery, but instead the fine actors imbue them with humanity. The romantic story at the film's center is overdone and not as compelling, but the writing is consistently clever, the scenery delightful to look at. It all makes for an enjoyable turn every now and then.

To be fair, this movie is a fine example of its genre (Victorian period piece), but personally all the repressed sexuality and romanticized acts of rebellion seem both silly and boring.

Its something to see DDL play a complete pansy, but its Bonham Carter and Maggie Smith that steal this. I suppose my lack of interest in costume dramas makes me biased, but the inevitable outcome couldn't come fast enough after awhile.

british women be faintin

A pretty but rather tedious adaptation, fatally undermined by poor casting of its principals. Saved somewhat by an early iteration of Maggie Smith playing the single delightful charicature she was to make her own, and Rupert Graves' fringe.

Well acted and filmed. Besides the talented cast which most period dramas in fact have, nothing else was done that made it stick out from the pack.

Another illustrated "classic" from the people who gave you _The Europeons_ and _The Bostonians_. The illustrations in this instance are handsome enough, though a little heavy on the starch. The whole enterprise comes across as a bit bloodless and effete -- a charge all the more telling in a work that keeps going on about "passion" and attempting to make satirical hash of the timid, the aloof, and the bookish.

Makes its point in the first quarter of an hour, then belabors it for the rest of the movie