Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!

Iseerphia All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

bigverybadtom Well, hardly as good as "Bridge Over The River Kwai" or "Lawrence of Arabia", anyway. Both of these were more for entertainment than accurate depictions of history, but they worked as dramas. Unfortunately this could hardly be called a great swan song. (In fact, Lean attempted to do a movie after this one but it fell through.)The story is about Adele and her friends, British people making a holiday trip to India during the 1920's. Once there, they see the British enclave in the country but want to see the exotic local areas, and Dr. Aziz, a local doctor in the enclave's medical service, befriends the group and agrees to take them, as well as other British tourists, to see the local caves.But things go wrong. Adele gets lost in a nightmarish jungle, and is disheveled and bleeding before she rejoins the others. Worse yet, Dr. Aziz has been arrested on charges of having attempted to rape Adele. This becomes the source of a potential clash between the Indian locals and their British overlords.So what went wrong with the movie itself? There are two very effective sequences, namely the nightmare scene in the jungle with vegetation and ruins and monkeys causing Adele to become increasingly afraid until she finally breaks into a panic, and later the equally tense scene as Adele is taken by a car through a hostile mob of Indians to the courtroom where Dr. Aziz is about to be tried on the rape charges.But the rest of the movie has serious flaws. One, it is overlong, and hardly seems worth the running time. Two, the character of Dr. Aziz is a self-effacing milquetoast who is as likely to be suspected of rape (according to another review) as Elmer Fudd. The trial ends anticlimactically (there was no rape), and while Dr. Aziz may have had reason to be rightfully angry, his abrupt abandonment of Western ways to become an Indian nationalist loyal to his own people is hardly convincing, like Manuel in "Fawlty Towers" finally fetching one across Basil Fawlty's mouth and running back to Madrid.Potentially, this movie could have been great and had a strong emotional impact, but they flubbed it. Look at Lean's other movies instead.

TheLittleSongbird Rewatching A Passage to India after a few years, it is not one of my favourite David Lean films like Lawrence of Arabia, Great Expectations, Bridge on the River Kwai, Brief Encounter and Oliver Twist are, but for a swansong of a great director (one of my personal favourites actually) it's a very good one, but I do remember liking it more on first watch.A Passage to India is not perfect, it ends anti-climactically and parts feel overlong and stretched with some drifting storytelling. This is also a rare case where the normally great Alec Guiness felt wasted and miscast, he never convinces in his very underwritten role and the performance is filled with uncharacteristically over-stated mannerisms.However, Lean directs superbly and the film is lavishly made with typically luscious cinematography, lavish period detail and some of the most gorgeously evocative scenery of any Lean film (in a filmography of films filled with gorgeous scenery). Maurice Jarre's music score has been criticised for being an ill-fit, for me while lacking the Indian flavour and a tad too jaunty in the credits it is sumptuously scored, soaringly epic, sounds glorious and evokes a lot of emotion. The script is literate and very beautifully written, capturing the essence of Forster's writing while not feeling overly wordy or heavy, while the story is rich in atmosphere and explores the important themes of colonialism, relationships between cultures and the British Empire and its imperialism in a subtle but powerful way.The film has been criticised for its pacing, and while there are a few draggy moments due to a few scenes feeling too stretched the main reason for the deliberate pacing was most likely for the viewer to soak up the setting and its atmosphere, A Passage to India does this brilliantly (and this is true for Lean's work in general as well). The part covering the trial is mostly fantastic but could have been longer, and the characters and their interactions are fascinating and well-realised. The acting is truly excellent, Peggy Ashcroft rightfully won an Oscar for her divine performance (especially in the temple scene) and Judy Davis is every bit her equal in a difficult but impulsively and movingly played performance. James Fox is remarkably thoughtful and sympathetic in his role, and Victor Banerjee gives his caricature role a real expressivity.Overall, a very good swansong from Lean and a very good film. 7.5/10 Bethany Cox

petra_ste Forster has been lucky as far as movie adaptations of his works are concerned. James Ivory did him justice with A Room with a View and especially with the magnificent Howards End, and having your most successful book handled by David Lean is something every novelist would envy.A feast for the eyes - with damp jungles, peaks shrouded in clouds and crystal-blue lakes reflecting the sky like polished mirrors - the movie is a tale of social, racial and sexual tension, as in colonial India a British lady (wrongly) accuses a local doctor of attacking her during a visit to an isolated archaeological site.The female protagonists fare better than their male counterparts. Judy Davis is phenomenal in the lead role of Adela Quested - a nuanced, powerful portrayal of a psychologically distressed individual. Ashcroft is also excellent as Mrs Moore.Banerjee succeeds at making doctor Aziz likable, but it isn't exactly a subtle performance: he appears too childlike, naive and eager to please. Only in the epilogue some much needed bitterness comes through and paints the doctor as something deeper than a saintly scapegoat. More on target is James Fox as the British educator who sides with Aziz against his own compatriots. Alec Guinness, great as he was, is miscast as a Brahmin.Not one of Lean's best works, but still compelling and visually rich.7/10; for a different take (less political, more esoteric) on similar themes - sexual repression, conflict between nature and civilization - see also Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock.

calvinnme I've always loved this film.This film has a lot of truly fascinating character development. Dr. Aziz goes from the kind of easily intimidated and emotionally battered employee that the British must have loved to have as a compliant colonial subject, to a frightened defendant who has had injustice snatch him from his lonely but well-ordered life, to a bitter and empowered man who thinks identifying with the plight of his fellow Indians means he must abandon all friendships with westerners, in particular that of the compassionate Richard Fielding. Sir Alec Guiness plays the minor but important role of Professor Godbole, a man whose beliefs puzzle Fielding. When Aziz has been unjustly accused of raping Adela Quested, a British woman, Fielding wants to mount some kind of campaign, to perform some kind of action on Aziz' behalf. Godbole calmly insists that although he cares about Aziz very much, nothing he or anyone does will matter - the whole thing has been predetermined. This is one of the issues that plays like background music in the film - that of Western views of human action and divine purpose working synergistically versus Eastern views on the same themes - karma versus Christian endeavor. I truly believe 1984 was a year in which the Academy got it right - Amadeus was indeed the best picture. However, this film is a photo-finish second and I highly recommend it.