Where Angels Fear to Tread (film)

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For other uses, see Where Angels Fear to Tread (disambiguation).

Where Angels Fear to Tread
DVD cover
Directed by	Charles Sturridge
Produced by	Nick Elliott Derek Granger Giovanna Romagnoli (co-producer) Titanus Distribuzione
Written by	E. M. Forster(novel) Tim Sullivan Derek Granger Charles Sturridge
Starring	Rupert Graves Helen Mirren Helena Bonham Carter Barbara Jefford Judy Davis
Music by	Rachel Portman
Cinematography	Michael Coulter
Editing by	Peter Coulson
Distributed by	Compact Films New Line Cinema Rank Organisation Sovereign Pictures Stagescreen
Release date(s)	1991
Running time	116 min.
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English Italian
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Where Angels Fear to Tread is a 1991 film based on the 1905 novel, Where Angels Fear to Tread, by E. M. Forster.

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

On a journey to Tuscany with her young friend and travelling companion Caroline Abbott (Helena Bonham Carter), widowed Lilia Herriton (Helen Mirren) falls in love with both Italy and a handsome Italian much younger than herself, and decides to stay. Furious, her dead husband's family send Lilia's brother-in-law and his sister to Italy to prevent a misalliance, but they arrive too late. Lilia marries the Italian and in due course becomes pregnant again. When she dies giving birth to her child, the Herritons consider it both their right and their duty to travel to Monteriano to obtain custody of the infant so that he can be raised as an Englishman.

Similarly to A Room with a View, both Italy and its inhabitants are presented as exuding an irresistible charm, to which eventually also Caroline Abbott succumbs. However, there is a tragic ending to the novel, while the film adds a suggestively positive scene.

The film is often erroneously believed to have been made by Merchant Ivory Productions, who made A Room with a View. A synopsis of the introductory plot of Where Angels Fear to Tread was used as dialogue in the film A Room with a View — in the scene of Charlotte Bartlett and Eleanor Lavish gossiping in a field