Howards End

Plot synopsis:
In Edwardian England Helen Schlegel (Helena Bonham Carter) becomes engaged to Paul Wilcox during a moment of passion, while she is staying at the country home of the Wilcox family, Howards End. The Schlegels are an intellectual family of Anglo-German bourgeoisie, while the Wilcox's are conservative and wealthy, headed by hard-headed businessman Henry (Anthony Hopkins). Helen and Paul quickly decide against the engagement, but Helen has already sent a telegram informing her sister Margaret (Emma Thompson), which causes an uproar when the sisters' Aunt Juley (Prunella Scales) arrives and causes a scene. Months later, when the Wilcox family takes a flat across the street from the Schlegels in London, Margaret resumes her acquaintance with Mrs. Wilcox (Vanessa Redgrave), whom she had briefly met before. Ruth is descended from English yeoman stock and it is through her family that the Wilcoxes have come to own Howards End, a house she loves dearly.
Over the course of the next few months, the two women become very good friends, even as Mrs. Wilcox's health declines. Hearing that the lease on the Schlegels' house is due to expire, Ruth bequeaths Howards End to Margaret on her death bed. This causes great consternation to the Wilcoxes, who refuse to believe that Ruth was in her "right mind" or could possibly have intended her home to go to a relative stranger. The Wilcoxes burn the piece of paper on which Ruth's bequest is written, deciding to ignore it completely. Henry begins to develop an attraction to Margaret, offering to assist her in finding a new home. Eventually he proposes marriage, which Margaret accepts.
Some time before this the Schlegels had befriended a young clerk, Leonard Bast (Samuel West), who lives with a woman of dubious origins named Jackie (Nicola Duffett). Both sisters find Leonard remarkable, appreciating his intellectual curiosity and desire to improve his lot in life. The sisters pass along advice from Henry to the effect that Leonard must leave his post, because the insurance company he works for is supposedly heading for bankruptcy. Leonard takes the advice and quits, but has to settle for a job paying much less, which he eventually loses altogether. Helen is later enraged to learn that Henry's advice was wrong and the company was perfectly sound.
Months later, Henry and Margaret host the wedding of his daughter Evie (Jemma Redgrave) at his Shropshire estate. Margaret is shocked when Helen arrives with the Basts, who she has found living in deep poverty. Considering that Henry is responsible for their plight, she demands he help them. However Jackie becomes drunk at the reception, and when she sees Henry she recognizes and exposes him as a former lover from years ago. Henry is embarrassed and ashamed to have been revealed as an adulterer in front of Margaret, but she forgives him and agrees to send the Basts away. After the wedding, Helen, upset with Margaret's decision to marry a man she loathes, leaves for Germany, but not before making love to Leonard.
Margaret and Henry marry, with the pair arranging to use Howards End as storage for Margaret's belongings. After months of only hearing from Helen through the odd postcard, Margaret grows concerned. When Aunt Juley falls ill, Helen returns to England to care for her but avoids seeing Margaret. Thinking that Helen is mentally unstable, Margaret lures her to Howards End to collect her belongings, only to confront her with a doctor. However on first glance she realizes that Helen is heavily pregnant, with Leonard Bast's child. Helen insists on returning to Germany to raise her baby alone, but asks that she be allowed to stay the night at Howards End before she leaves. When Margaret requests this from Henry, he stubbornly refuses and the two bicker.
The next day, Leonard, still living unhappily in poverty with Jackie, leaves London and travels to Howards End to see the Schlegels. When he arrives he finds the pair, as well as Henry's brutish eldest son Charles (James Wilby). Charles quickly realizes that Leonard is the baby's father, and begins assaulting him for dishonoring Helen. In his rage he beats him with the flat of a sword, which causes Leonard to have a heart attack and die. The police charge Charles with manslaughter and Henry breaks down when Margaret tells him that she is leaving him to help raise Helen's baby.
A year later Paul, Evie and Charles's wife Dolly gather at Howards End. Henry and Margaret are still together, and living with Helen and her young son. Henry tells the others that upon his death, Margaret will receive Howards End, but no money, at her own request. Dolly points out the irony of Margaret inheriting the house, revealing Mrs. Wilcox's dying wish to Margaret for the first time. Henry admits to what happened, and Margaret appears to forgive him.

Tags: romantic, boring, historical, melodrama

Review:
She still remains a sympathetic character up until the very end when she slowly comes back to her senses.Anthony Hopkins also gives one of his best performances as the cold and hypocritical Henry Wilcox.
Even the minor characters like Nicola Duffet's Jackie Bast and Jemma Redgrave's stony-faced Evie Wilcox are noteworthy."Howards End" is one of the richest, most nuanced films I have seen.
What could quite easily have been a dry study in the cultural dynamics of pre-WWI England becomes an enveloping tale, thanks in no small part to the performances by Hopkins, Emma Thompson, and Vanessa Redgrave, whose Ruth Wilcox remains enigmatic after every viewing.
To have Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter, Vanessa Redgrave, and Anthony Hopkins in one movie together is to see a true synthesis of talent, not to mention James Wilby and Samuel West.
Based on E.M. Forster's novel `Return to Howards End' this film is more or less a set piece in the strictest period-piece tradition, and thus in style is somewhat akin to that great TV series `Return to Brideshead' and even Robert Altman came up trumps with his splendid `Gosford Park' which most definitely takes its well-earned place alongside such classical pieces of this genre.
The film should be commended as well for the fine performances of Emma Thompson, Anthony Hopkins, Helena Bonham-Carter and others.
We are watching something *happen*, not simply a movie or screenplay unfolding.There are many other great things about this film as well, but the feeling stated above is what many (if not most) movies fail to achieve, and with that fail to achieve "greatness".Beyond the great acting and directorial execution we are treated to, the audience also gets a chance with this film to explore class, values, and the interplay of characters that differ in many ways, but come together via certain events.There isn't much more to say.
Even that early time there were many who saw Germany as a potential foe.These two Schlegel sisters played by Emma Thompson and Helena Bonham Carter befriend the Wilcoxes, a family of newly rich plutocrats headed by Anthony Hopkins who seem to be a version of Lillian Hellman's the Hubbards lite.
Their mother is the class of the family and she's played by Vanessa Redgrave who is in poor health.While Bonham-Carter is rejected by Hopkins's son James Wilby as a suitable wife for marriage, Vanessa befriends Thompson finding her to be a kindred intellectual spirit in a house full of moneygrubbers.
Particularly with another of the Schlegel sisters friends, a young clerk named Leonard Bast played by Samuel West trying to make his way in the world as the Wilcoxes have.Emma Thompson won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Howards End that year and the film also won Oscars for Art&Set Direction and for adapted screenplay.
She's so incredibly common and obviously holding him back, you can't blame West for eventually getting involved with Bonham-Carter which leads to tragedy.The team of Ismail Merchant producer and James Ivory director succeed again at bringing the look and manners of Edwardian England as seen by E.M. Forster to life.
It just didn't have the appealing characters "Remains" had and it was a little too soap opera for my tastes but the visuals made up for that, ...and the story, to be fair, was solid and involving.It also had Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson, and those two make a great pair.
In his desire to better himself through literature, Leonard Bast (Samuel West) inadvertently stumbles into this world and ends up developing an unwise relationship with the waywardly enchanting Helen Schlegel (Helena Bonham-Carter).
The double standards of male behaviour are realised at the wedding of Margaret and Henry Wilcox (Anthony Hopkins) as the inebriated gatecrasher, Mrs Bast (Nicola Duffett), recognises the gentleman groom from her former life, whilst he in turn will not have the unwed and expectant Helen stay at the empty `Howard's End'.
The sad conclusion has to be drawn that though the rest of us suffer from his devastation, Primeval Man lives untouched by evolution and is in no danger of extinction.Vanessa Redgrave is touchingly charming as the naïve Mrs Wilcox who bequeaths her beloved Howard's End to Miss Schlegel, though in none too an official manner which leads to the plot's convolutions.
Anthony Hopkins is Wilcox the ruthless businessman who marries Margaret after the death of his wife--a luminous Vanessa Redgrave.Two events set things in motion here: the death of Ruth (who has befriended Margaret); and the stolen umbrella that brings Leonard Bast (Samuel West) into the sisters' lives.
As Margaret is drawn into the family life of Wilcox she distances herself from the intellectual pursuits of her younger days; Helen on the other hand is drawn into the Basts' lives and becomes more and more radical.The period detail is flawless, as expected in a Merchant/Ivory film.
well, it's impossible to compare any movie to Fargo.Perhaps too subtle for its own good (judging by its surprisingly low rating on this database), Howards End tells a story that succeeds on multiple levels - as indictment of the Edwardian class system; as an interwoven tale of complex people with truly simple motivations; and as how-to video for up and coming actors.
Witness the way Anthony Hopkins slowly seduces Emma Thompson, or the gentle scenes between Thompson and a bravely naive Vanessa Redgrave, or the movie's brief flashes of visceral passion unleashed by Helena Bonham-Carter, or...
And, to top it all, Richard Robbins's score is mesmerizing.With such a great cast like a snobbish but ambivalent Anthony Hopkins, a fragile and desperate Vanessa Redgrave, a fiery Helena Bonham Carter, a naive Sam West, a gentle motherly Prunella Scales and a host of brilliant supporting actors 'Howards end' shines.
All I'm gonna say is that this movie follows the events of three families in the early 20th century Victorian England - the aristocrats and capitalists Wilcox, the humanistic and philanthropist Schlegels, and the poor and hard-working Basts, and it shows how these so-different families are related to each other.The Oscar-winning screenplay here is based on a novel by E.M. Forster.
The cast features names like Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Vanessa Redgrave and Helena Bonham Carter, and they are all great.
The eye catching sets and immaculate costumes are perfect, giving one a real feel for the period.The acting too, is good (especially Helena Bonham Carter as 'Helen' and Sam West as 'Leonard Baast'), but that is about the end of it.
Directed by James Ivory, produced by Ismail Merchant and written by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, it is a remarkably faithful adaptation of the novel, and on top of this is also an elegant, nuanced and fascinating film.The period detail is perfect.
Vanessa Redgrave while her role is brief still leaves a lasting impression in a characterisation that is moving and wholly relevant, while as the cold Mr Wilcox Anthony Hopkins who a year later would give a brilliant performance in The Remains of the Day(another stylish and nuanced film) shows what a fine actor he is as he gives yet another fine performance.
The more minor characters were also very well done, from a spirited Samuel West, whose character Leonard Bast exemplifies the low expectations of the clerking classes, to a suitably serious Jemma Redgrave as Evie Wilcox.Overall, moving, elegant, nuanced and impeccably acted, Howards End is a must see.
This, combined with lovely art direction and costuming and the brilliant cast(particular credit to Emma Thompson as Margaret Schlegal, who serves as the moral and intellectual center of the story)makes the Merchant Ivory production of "Howards End" excellent..
This is the scene that establishes the lushness and loveliness of the English countryside in high summer." Right up until the closing credits, I was waiting for the scene that would involve me in a plot, and make me care about characters.The acting is so unrelentingly cold, arch, and artificial I have to believe that director James Ivory wanted viewers to see only Vanessa Redgrave, Emma Thompson, and Anthony Hopkins, never the characters they allegedly play.
Both great novels have as their theme the irreconcilability of social classes, and it's a measure of that British thoughtfulness which seeks to make things just right (not always successfully, but they try), that both have been assigned perfect directors: the grand sweep of Passage to India gets the master of large scale, Lean, and the almost claustrophobic intimacy of Howard's End gets the master of small scale, James Ivory.Both of Forster's stories offer no dramatic relief in the end: in Passage we are left with an unresolved mystery and justice only partially rendered; in Howard's End we have, really, no mystery, with justice only partially rendered.
Alas, such is the integrity of Lean and Ivory, that we remain frustrated in the filmed versions.As to Howard's End, in particular, one thing that you should be prepared is perhaps the most tragic character in the history of film, maybe even of literature, that of Leonard Bast.
He may have been that way in the book, but it certainly doesn't make for an interesting movie character.And there's the typical rich polo-playing snot Charles Wilcox, who like so many of his ilk think it is entirely in their right to pull out a sword and whack some lower-class scoundrel with the flat end of it like he does to Mr. Bast, who promptly snuffs it, which seems to effect no one...especially Emma's sister, who got him into all this bloody mess by pulling that poor sod's trousers off.Does the w****r actually go to prison for Bast's death?
Henry's refusal leads to great tension in the Wilcox household.Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson star in this Merchant-Ivory production.
The conversation in which Henry proposes perfectly shows Henry's true self: unconfident, bad with words, and afraid to be turned down."Howards End" is a great film; a scathing critique of hypocrisy and classism, and at the same time a tale of a man who is too afraid to be himself, and a woman who refuses to be anything but herself.
While the impact of Clint Eastwood's "Unforgiven," (which beat out this production to win the Best Picture Oscar for 1992) has faded somewhat, "Howards End" remains not only a potent study of character and class structure in turn-of-the-century England, but a strong dramatic and extremely emotional story.
In this adaptation of E.M. Forster's novel of the same name, it has a first rate cast which introduced Emma Thompson in her Academy Award winning performance as well as Oscar winner and nominee Vanessa Redgrave in a masterclass performance as a dying woman who misses her home in Howards' End. Sir Anthony Hopkins plays the bereaving widow who remarries Thompson in the film.
It bids filmmaking techniques obliged in no way to the industrialized indelicacy of innumerable modern movies, but together with an gracefully telling script and faultless acting all around from Anthony Hopkins, in addition to Redgrave and most particularly Thompson, what separates Merchant-Ivory's Edwardian cross-stitch are its characters' multifaceted inner lives.
I have just seen "Howard's End," and I think that it is probably the best Merchant-Ivory film they ever collaborated on.
I cant understand why this movie had such a different effect than "Remains Of The Day", same director, same actors, but I think that film had less unneeded characters and was seen through the eyes of Anthony Hopkins' character.
"Howards End" is a Drama - Romance movie in which we watch and follow three social classes of England which are very different one to another.
About the direction which was made by James Ivory I would like to say that it was very good and I believe that he did a great job on it.To sum up, I have to say that "Howards End" is a very interesting movie with some very good plot twists and an equally good direction.
Dir. James Ivory-Pro. Ismail Merchant' s excellent work Howards End , 1992 with Emma Thompson-Anthony Hopkins is adapted from novel of E.M.Foster.
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala earned her second Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, while Emma Thompson won the 1992 Academy Award for Best Actress.The film ended up on Ebert's list of "great movies" in 2005, which is impressive -- typically you only see classics make a list like that, but Ebert went for it.
Howards End.It is truly one of the most beautiful films ever made.Wonderfully directed and superb acting by all!Hopkins and Emma Thompson are at their best here.We are given a look into a world divided by two classes.I enjoyed this social tale and it's colorful english scenery!This film is the perfect example of why I love the movies.NOt only our we priviledge to witness sir Anthony Hopkins in undoubtly one of his finest performances,we also feel the heavy weight of a promise,that the character,Leonard Bass,has on his shoulders.If you have not seen this movie,you should.Maybe,you too,will ask yourself,"Why can't they make more movies like this??".
Merchant/Ivory give E.M. Forster's novel the Masterpiece Theatre treatment, and the result is an accomplished and beautiful-looking film, if one that misses out on the psychological complexity of Forster's novel.Emma Thompson and Helena Bonham Carter play two Bohemian sisters who find themselves embroiled in the affairs of an aristocratic and business-oriented family and its estate when the family matriarch (played imperiously by Vanessa Redgrave) dies.
Fairly poor Margaret Schlegel (Emma Thompson) befriends elderly Ruth Wilcox (Vanessa Redgrave) who leaves her Howard's End, a country estate.
James Ivory (who would make the excellent Remains of the Day the next year), has taken the novell by E.M. Forster to the screen very well and is helped a great deal by his fantastic cast: Redgrave (who was nominated for an academy award) and Thompson (who actually bagged it) in particular are impeccable.The ending may seem a bit sudden and overblown, but what's left is a fascinating story, well directed and perfectly acted.
I was expecting something akin to The Remains of the Day, especially as both movies starred Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson.Unfortunately, Howards End doesn't quite have the same engagement levels as The Remains of the Day, nor the emotional impact.
Directed by James Ivory and based on the novel of the same name written by E.M. Forster, Howards End is a film about class struggle in early 20th Century Victorian England and a social commentary which will always seem relevant.The storyline can be described as the junction or the meeting point of the three primary classes of Victorian British society- the upper class of rich aristocrats- the Wilcoxes, the middle class consisting of philanthropic intellectuals- the Schlegels and the poor working class consisting of people who have to struggle constantly to survive- the Basts.The film for the most works due to great acting.
"Howard's End" is not just a riveting story, carried by superb performances -Emma Thompson totally deserved her Oscar as the sweet, caring but strong-willed Margaret- it's also the magnificent epitaph of an old order, in the same intensity and human resonance than "Gone With the Wind", like only the Ivory-Merchant could have produced.
Winning the 1992 BAFTA for Best Film and Best Actress Oscar for Emma Thompson, James Ivory's HOWARD'S END is that rarity - a film whose complexities of character and plot seem more rewarding on successive viewings.
They meet when Helen accidentally brings home his umbrella from a music lecture; and it is the Schlegels' well-intended advice about changing jobs which leads to Bast becoming unemployed.Margaret befriends the slow and elderly Ruth Wilcox (Vanessa Redgrave), owner of a country house called Howard's End. She is the wife of Henry (Anthony Hopkins), a dry businessman who is full of the dry Victorian moral rectitude which is starting to look stifling and pallid in the Liberal England of 1910.
Henry marries Margaret.Bast is the outsider is eventually connects the Schlegels and the Wilcoxs - his wife is a former lover of Henry's and Bast eventually gets Helen pregnant.HOWARD'S END is not only superbly plotted as a screenplay (from the E.M. Forster novel), but the characters also seem alive to the period, and therefore modern within the film's context.
The story concerns itself with the middle-class Schlegal sisters, Margaret (Emma Thompson) and Helen (Helena Bonham Carter).
The story opens in Edwardian England, where we meet Margaret and Helen Schlegel (Emma Thompson, Helena Bodham Carter), genteel sisters who are concerned with the lot of the poor.
Meanwhile, Margaret develops a friendship with the Wilcoxes (Anthony Hopkins, Vanessa Redgrave), a wealthy family whose country home, Howards End, will become an important part of all their lives.Based on E.
Forster was an author of both sly humor and deep sensibility, and a rare male writer with the gift of creating believable, multi-layered female characters.James Ivory directs an adaptation of Howard's End, Forster's masterpiece, focused on the intersecting stories of three families in early 20th century London: wealthy Wilcoxes, with patriarch Henry (Anthony Hopkins), his wife (Vanessa Redgrave); intellectual Schlegels, with sisters Meg (Emma Thompson in an Oscar-winning performance) and Helen (Helena Bonham-Carter); and proletarian clerk Leonard Bast (James West).Acting is magnificent.
I believe that HOWARDS END is one of the great film adaptations of a classic novel, with themes about the need to connect with people who are different than we are.
Her character, Margaret Schlegel , and her sister (Helena Bonham Carter, who is also quite good) find their future invariably linked to the Howards End Estate.
Because Remains of the day is one of the most exellent yet frustrating films of all time if you are a romantic like me you will enjoy watching howards end afterwards to satisfy the need of Hopkins and Thompson to get together..
The Wilcox are an upper class family, living a comfortable existence.As Henry Cox (Anthony Hopkins) states during the film 'The poor are poor, and one's sorry for them but there it is.'Howards End is a house in the fringe of the country owned by Mrs Wilcox (Vanessa Redgrave) left to her by her brother.
Margaret was a friend of Wilcox's first wife Ruth(Vanessa Redgrave)who owned a house called Howards End which she loved.