Howards End

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Howards End

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Howards End

Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter, Anthony Hopkins, Samuel West, Vanessa Redgrave

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

Id: 10979301

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Howards End Recent Reviews
  • her69eyes
    November 24, 2009
    her69eyes
    "Howards End" remains among the most beloved works of the Merchant-Ivory team, composed of producer Ismail Merchant, director James Ivory, and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Working with low budgets and out-of-copyright novels, the filmmaking trio completed such efforts as "T...( read more)he Remains of the Day" and "A Room With a View" over their three decade long relationship. Along with their success, however, a fiery backlash still remains. Merchant-Ivory, to many, is synonymous with dull, over-mannered, and passionless drama. Although "Howards End" has too much going for it to be considered insufferable, I found it to ultimately be an endurance test.

    The film is based on the novel by E.M. Forster, which penetrates the cultural collision between traditional and modern in 1910 England. The Wilcox clan represents the old, with matriarch Ruth (Vanessa Redgrave) now terrible ill. Before her passing, she befriends an upper middle class Margaret Schlegel (Emma Thompson). Ruth attempts to will her the Wilcox's country estate, Howards End, before the time of her death, however her son, Henry (Anthony Hopkins), burns the letter and keeps the estate for himself after Ruth passes. Meanwhile, Margaret's sister, Helen (Helena Bonham Carter), has been spending time with a lower class clerk, Leonard Bast (Samuel West).

    As to be expected from the genre, the costuming, acting, and cinematography are sumptuous. Emma Thompson, in particular, is terrific as the practical and dependent Margaret. Together, with Anthony Hopkins, the two bring the film a pulse and a certain level of authenticity.

    I cannot explain, however, what the film is lacking. It's the rare film that makes you wish you were reading the book instead of watching it on screen. The editing, fading in and out in the middle of unbroken shots, could be considered a contributing factor to the film's elegant beauty. To me, however, they accurately represented what my eyelids were doing about an hour in.

    "Howards End" is a feast for the eyes, but the drama is so restrained by the film's manners that things start to tread water long before the credits roll. Perhaps i'll eventually find Merchant-Ivory an acquired taste, and I certainly won't rule out a revisitation of this effort, but for now I can confidently say, well, it's not my cup of tea.
  • 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.
  • daghka
    December 25, 2009
    daghka
    Absolutely wonderful, I was dazed watching this film, watched it in blu-ray too. It really is quite a splendid picture with some of the finest acting and cinematography seen. The snappy dialogue with its range of vocabulary and knowledge was just sweet and delightful to hear. I h...( read more)ighly recommend this, for it really is great in its own form and the content is one other part of it.
  • sportboy
    November 26, 2009
    sportboy
    I didn't get into this film at all I could see that this was about love and business.A women turned up in a wedding and then the rest of the story carried on with the buisnessman and wife.

    For me the story was boring and wasn't done in enough detail.I found it boring and not e...( read more)ntertaining.The acting was done pretty well but I just thought the story was boring and was not entertaining well nothing happened I can't give that much information about the story really.
    For me it was just talk and nothing really happened nothing delivered that entertained me throughout this film.

    Overall if you like this type of story check it out otherwise just don't bother.
  • littleyiye
    November 24, 2009
    littleyiye
    still under the influence of the novel, it was just that much harder to truly enjoy the film when the exclaim 'that's not how I imagined it' wouldn't stop distracting the focus.
  • magnolia12883
    November 16, 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.
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