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Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter, Anthony Hopkins

A businessman thwarts his wife's bequest of an estate to another woman.

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82% liked it

3,120 ratings

PG, 2 hrs. 20 min.

Directed by: James Ivory

Release Date: March 13, 1992

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DVD Release Date: June 18, 2001

Stats: 442 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (442)

  • hypathio7
    June 30, 2009
    hypathio7
    Another Merchant and Ivory production of an E.M. Forster novel. But, oh, don''t forget the third less well known partner in this film making team, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who wrote most of Merchant and Ivory's screenplays. So, it's England in the 1910's again and a story about th...( read more)e division between the social classes.

    Howards End is a house, a mansion, an estate. In a special feature it was described that Forster meant the property to represent England, the country. The Schlegels, Helen, Margaret, and their quieter brother Tibby had been born at Howards End. Their family later had financial difficulties and lost the house. It was bought by the Wilcox family. Anthony Hopkins as Henry Wilcox, who is in the highest of the upper classes will not give the property to the slightly lower Schlegels. In fact, he refuses to let any of his family live there. He would rather let it sit and go to waste. Now all grown up, Emma Thompson as Margaret seems passive-aggressive (much more on the passive side) in her plan to get Howards End back in her family's name. I kept expecting her to use a surprise double-cross move in order to tear down the Wilcox family and grab the estate out of their hands, but she is the image of kindness, gentleness, and forgiveness. It is through befriending the dying Ruth Wilcox (Redgrave) and marrying Henry that she keeps her family close enough to the estate for it to fall in her lap when the Wilcox family self-destructs in their own snobbery and hypocrisy.

    The other main storyline involves Helena Bonham Carter as Helen Schlegel who is very impulsive. By chance, she causes Leonard Bast (West) to come into their lives. Bast is a man of much lower social class who has tried to work his way up. The Schlegel sisters come to care for him and try to help him, though fate and the status quo prevent them. Helen begins to have deeper feelings for the married Bast. She becomes pregnant with his illegitimate child, which of course is a huge scandal in high society. Anyways, the times are a-changin and it's more the downfall of the corrupt rich than the meager efforts of the poor that lead to things turning around in the end.
  • organgrinder136
    October 12, 2008
    organgrinder136
    helena bonham carter on top form. redgrave, thompson and hopkins were all great too. the story develops gradually but is ultimately satisfying. very good cinematography. i'm really starting to rate helena bonham carter as a good actress, as appose to simply being a fan of her in ...( read more)fight club. also the film flows... as i was watching i said to myself "you couldn't write this stuff" forgetting that it was a work of fiction, a book by E.M. Forster and had been written. i got totally engrossed and forgot it wasn't real. well done james ivory for his sublime direction
  • Cinema101
    October 16, 2007
    Cinema101
    6/10

    I felt the filmmakers tried to fit way too much from the novel into the film's two hour and 20 minute running time. I'm aware the Merchant-Ivory adaptations are meant to be as true to the source material as possible, but that's just the problem. What's the point of making o...( read more)ne work of art based on another if it's going to be an inferior copy? Lost is the true essence of the novel here, although it did prove thoroughly engaging as a (pointless) period romance.
  • thmtsang
    July 14, 2007
    thmtsang
    Good movie with insights into different classes.
  • lavenderfawn
    March 24, 2007
    lavenderfawn
    One of the most BORING MOVIES EVER MADE!
  • magnolia12883
    October 20, 2009
    magnolia12883
    Merchant-Ivory's gorgeous epic is an emotionally withdrawn yet passionate, beautiful yet realistic period affair about classism, moral hypocrisy and the importance of having a home of your own. In England in 1910, the matriarch Mrs. Ruth Wilcox (Vanessa Redgrave) is dying a slow,...( read more) gradually agonizing death and yet has neither lost her faculties nor her system of personal values. One day, Mrs. Wilcox meets Margaret Schlegel (Emma Thompson), a sharp-witted, literate young woman, the daughter of a British-German family whose lives have been filled with literature and music. Mrs. Wilcox can see right off that Margaret has a good heart and deep-seeded values, like herself. Thus, when Mrs. Wilcox dies, she scrawls a note on her deathbed leaving her own family estate, Howards End, to Margaret and her family. Mrs. Wilcox's own bereaved family figure this for a mistake, or perhaps the last action of a senile and dying old woman, and consequently the note is placed in a fire. Meanwhile, Margaret's spirited young sister Helen (Helena Bonham Carter) attends a Beethoven lecture one day where a young man, Leonard Bast (Samuel West), has his umbrella taken by her on accident, leading to a high-speed pursuit through the city on foot in the pouring rain. Arriving at the Schlegel residence to correct the mistake, he is invited in for tea, and little does anyone suspect that his fate will soon be intwined with that of the Schlegels. The late Mrs. Wilcox was married, you see, to a cold and wealthy businessman known as Henry Wilcox (Anthony Hopkins), a shy, quiet and emotionally withdrawn man with definite ideas about class in modern British society; it was he who threw the ill-fated note in the fireplace. He meets Margaret when his wife is still alive, is fully aware of her admiration and deep feeling for her, and when he is widowed, awkwardly proposes marriage. She agrees, and thus becomes the mistress of the residence that ought, by rights, be hers in the first place. Trouble is brewing, however. Leonard Bast had a good-paying job at a firm that Henry predicts is about "to go smash." As a result, Leonard quits, and he and his wife Jacky (Nicola Duffett) descend into poverty and hunger. Margaret tries desperately to convince her new husband to throw Leonard a bone, but he is rigid about his beliefs ("The poor are poor. One is sorry for them, but there it is.") and cannot take responsibility - though Helen believes he's to blame. There is yet another development in this web: Helen, feeling indebted to Leonard, crashes her sister's wedding and Jacky's presence causes an astonishing outburst on the part of Henry - one which reveals a deep-seeded, closely guarded secret, and the level to which his hypocrisy can sink. The film has been produced by the team known simply as Merchant-Ivory: it was directed by James Ivory ("A Room with a View," "Mr. & Mrs. Bridge") and produced by Ismail Merchant. The screenplay, by long-time collaborator Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, was adapted from E.M. Forster's novel; curiously, although the film was made in 1992 and is thus, by definition, a period piece, it is based on a novel written and set in 1910. The film is a glorious physical production, from the lush cinematography by Tony Pierce-Roberts, to Luciana Arrighi's production design, to the costumes and the music. The cast perfectly embodies the characters they are playing: from Emma Thompson as the free-spirited Margaret blindsided into upper-middle-class marriage, to Helena Bonham Carter as her even more free-spirited younger sister, to Anthony Hopkins as the bleakly unbending and willful old trout and Vanessa Redgrave as his far more sympathetic wife - who first sees all her own qualities in Margaret long before her husband does. The story is one about classism (Henry's merciless critiques of the Basts and his treatment of them - and Margaret before his marriage to her), hypocrisy (the pathetic willingness to cling to old-fashioned beliefs when it suits a person while completely ignoring them when "necessary"), and deep-seeded values (hovering over the film all the time is Ruth Wilcox's desire to see her home come into the hands of a deserving recipient, and not simply a sniveling and unappreciative relative). It is cool, austere, absorbing and fascinating. One of the year's best films.

    NOTE: This won 3 Oscars for Best Actress (Thompson), Art Direction-Set Decoration and Adapted Screenplay. It was nominated for 6 other Oscars including Picture, Director, Supporting Actress (Redgrave), Cinematography, Costume Design and Original Score.
  • jscottcorley
    August 16, 2009
    jscottcorley
    More like Howard's Never End. Actually, maybe Howard can give me the 2 hours of my life back.
  • mvieaddict
    July 4, 2009
    mvieaddict
    James Ivory is known for his skill in adapting classic novels. Without doubt one of his best is 'Howards End', based on a famous book.
    From the opening credits, showing Vanessa Redgrave's skirt sweeping through the wet grass and flowers around her beloved Howards End, till the fi...( read more)nal image , the cinematography was perfect. The costuming was amazing, the screenplay masterly, and the acting was brilliant. To have Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter, Vanessa Redgrave, and Anthony Hopkins in one movie together, was like to see a film of true talents.

    I recommend this film to anyone who loves artistic cinematography. Also it was full of the finest performances by all of the actors involved.
  • ceresaverde
    June 4, 2009
    ceresaverde
    Pretty good movie, but I didn't really like the story.
  • robertscottwall
    March 14, 2009
    robertscottwall
    I loved this movie and the interplay between Hopikins and Thompson is just art.

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  • SJMJ91
    June 19, 2008
    SJMJ91
    Excellent performances from Emma Thompson, Anthony Hopkins and Helena Bonham Carter but plot wasnt as good as I thought it would be.
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  • I starred opposite Emma Thompson in both 'Howard's End' and 'Remains of the Day'... who am I?  Answer »
  • She won Oscars for writing the screenplay of Sense & Sensibility (1995), and her acting in Howard's End (1992). Who is she?  Answer »
  • Vanessa Redgrave won an Oscar for her role in Howards End ?  Answer »
  • Which Actress played in these films? Howards End Sense and Sensibility Primary Colors Nanny McPhee Love Actually Stranger Than Fiction  Answer »
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