MOVIE REVIEW : ‘Angels’ an Intelligent Adaptation of Forster Work

British novelist E. M. Forster’s world was one of translucent surfaces and steely fibers, of manners above, morals below. And since he had so little use for the movies--withholding his novels from the screen while he lived--it’s ironic that the movies have served him so well since his death.

“Where Angels Fear to Tread” (Beverly Center Cineplex, Goldwyn Pavilion) is the fifth Forster novel to be filmed since 1984, and though probably the least of the five, it has its fine points. It’s a bit drowsy and unsteady at times, but overall, it’s an intelligent, nuanced, sensitive, faithful adaptation. It has two remarkable performances, by Judy Davis and Helen Mirren. And the Italian locations--around San Gimignano, the inspiration for Forster’s fictitious Monteriano--have a quiet, shimmering beauty, trees and hills spreading out in dreamily sharp Canaletto lines.

Like most of the other Forster films, “Angels” is about the collision of British repression with something more exotic and liberating: here, the ease and eroticism of the Italian countryside. Beginning with the Charing Cross departure of a discontented widow (Mirren as Lilia Herriton), it springs its first surprise quickly: Lilia’s decision to marry the Italian son of a provincial dentist. Then it settles into an account of the battle between Lilia’s stuffy relatives over the next generation, a fight that rages first over Lilia’s access to her own daughter, then over Lilia’s and Gino’s son.

It’s a war of values, and both Forster and his current adaptors judge the Herritons harshly. Lilia’s starchy mother-in-law (Barbara Jefford) and stiff, hysterical sister-in-law Harriet (Davis) are ultimate small-town snobs, cultural chauvinists who see nothing in Italy but moral rot and slackness.

The movie’s two liberals, Lilia’s brother-in-law Phillip (Rupert Graves) and her companion Caroline Abbott (Helena Bonham-Carter), see-saw between approval and condemnation. Attracted to the lazy grandeur of the Tuscan provincial town, they’re tantalizingly ambivalent about Lilia’s choice. And the object of all this fine-spun fury, Gino (Giovanni Guidelli of “Night of the Shooting Stars”), remains oblivious to the havoc he has wreaked, just as he is blind to his wife’s desires for independence or the hypocrisy of his own philandering life style.

If the movie seems rougher, less worked out than the other Forster films, it’s not the source, but the realization. Director and co-writer Charles Sturridge hasn’t quite embedded all the story’s conflicting impulses in a smooth overall design.

In the 1988 “A Handful of Dust” and the BBC’s “Brideshead Revisited,” Sturridge brought out Evelyn Waugh’s melancholy side. Here, he over-accents Forster’s buried eroticism with homosexual overtones. But Rupert Graves, though a Forster film veteran, is an odd choice for Phillip. He lacks both qualities Forster insisted on--weedy height and physical plainness--and he tends to play the role as a sweet-tempered, well-intentioned fop, without too much intelligence or irony.

It’s in the women and the sun-dappled Tuscan countryside that “Where Angels Fear to Tread” (MPAA rated PG) finds its prime values. Connoisseurs of elegantly nasty ham in the Bette Davis-Glenda Jackson tradition will relish Davis’ fierce twitches, scowls and squall-like flare-ups, while Bonham-Carter is an admirably idealistic Caroline and Mirren a poignantly reckless Lilia.

Great roles for actresses are rare these days, so it’s hard to condemn the film for fudging Phillip or going, at times, a little stodgy and arch. What Forster and Phillip loved about the Italians was their willingness to be bad; that’s why we can forgive Sturridge and company. Without some foolishness rushing in, angels might never tread at all.

‘Where Angels Fear to Tread’

Helena Bonham-Carter: Caroline Abbott

Judy Davis: Harriet Herriton

Rupert Graves: Phillip Herriton

Helen Mirren: Lilia Herriton

A Fine Line Features presentation of a Stage Screen production. Director Charles Sturridge. Producer Derek Granger. Executive producers Jeffrey Taylor. Screenplay by Tim Sullivan, Granger, Sturridge. Cinematographer Michael Coulter. Editor Peter Coulson. Costumes Monica Howe. Music Rachel Portman. Production design Simon Holland. Running time: 1 hour, 54 minutes.

MPAA-rated PG