Fans of Merchant-Ivory will rightly expect lush period settings and some of the great talents in British cinema—like Vanessa Redgrave, Anthony Hopkins & Helena Bonham Carter. But this emotional epic of forsaken love also remarkably teems with rage at the class divisions in Edwardian-era England.
Thirty years before Call Me By Your Name, this lavish period drama from Merchant Ivory encapsulated their uniquely tender and direct perspective on gay love. Featuring a young Hugh Grant in a passionate, heartbreaking performance, this visionary piece of queer cinema has left its mark.
Adapting Henry James’s tragicomic novel with precision and style, this lavish, Oscar®-nominated Merchant Ivory production revolves around a fiery battle of wills. Tinged with sapphic desire, the central love triangle delicately hints at the complexities of women’s suffrage in 19th-century America.