Where Angels Fear to Tread is a 1991 British drama film directed by Charles Sturridge and starring Helena Bonham Carter, Judy Davis, Rupert Graves, Giovanni Guidelli, Barbara Jefford, and Helen Mirren.

Not wanting to be outdone, or considered any less moral or less concerned than Caroline for the child's welfare, Lilia's mother-in-law sends Philip and his priggish spinster sister Harriet (Judy Davis) to Monteriano to obtain custody of the infant and bring him back to Sawston, where he can receive what she perceives to be a proper upbringing and education.

Everything about the journey—especially the heat, the uncomfortable accommodations, and her difficulty communicating with the locals, distresses repressed and xenophobic Harriet; but Philip and Caroline both begin to find themselves attracted to everything Tuscan that had appealed to Lilia.

[citation needed] Janet Maslin of The New York Times observed the film "has been faithfully but unimaginatively directed by Charles Sturridge, whose ... principal asset here is a very fine cast.

"[3] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote the film "is rather unconvincing as a story and a movie; Forster had not yet learned to bury his themes completely within the action of a novel, as he does so brilliantly in Howards End.

There are some good things, especially Mirren's widow, tasting passion and love for the first time, and Davis' sister, a prototype for all those dreadnought British spinsters for whom false pride is a virtue, not a sin.

"[5] Variety called the film "a far more rewarding dip into the E.M. Forster tub than some of its predecessors" with "none of the top-heaviness of David Lean's A Passage to India or the starchiness of Merchant Ivory's A Room with a View.

"[6] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly graded the film C, noting "except for Helen Mirren's brief, mischievous performance ... the movie remains frustratingly distant from its characters' inner lives.