Set during the period of growing influence of the Indian independence movement in the British Raj, the story begins with the arrival in India of a British woman, Miss Adela Quested, who is joining her fiancé, a city magistrate named Ronny Heaslop. She and Ronny's mother, Mrs. Moore, befriend an Indian doctor, Aziz H. Ahmed.
Not for literary purists, but if you like your entertainment well tailored, then feel the quality and the width.
– ,
Time Out,
24 Jun 2006
fresh:
The film is very much 'a full theatrical meal,' and one that conveys a lot of 'the multiplicity of life' one seldom sees on the screen these days.
– Vincent Canby,
New York Times,
20 May 2003
fresh:
Forster's novel is one of the literary landmarks of this century, and now David Lean has made it into one of the greatest screen adaptations I have ever seen.
– Roger Ebert,
Chicago Sun-Times,
23 Oct 2004
fresh:
An impeccably faithful, beautifully played and occasionally languorous adaptation of E.M. Forster's classic novel.
– Variety Staff,
Variety,
6 Nov 2007
rotten:
David Lean's studied, plodding, overanalytic direction manages to kill most of the meaning in E.M. Forster's haunting novel of cultural collision in colonial India.