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

Release Year: 1992

Rating: 7.4/10 (13,034 voted)

Critic's Score: 87/100

Director: James Ivory

Stars: Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Vanessa Redgrave

Storyline
Encounter of three social classes of the England at the beginning of the century : the victorian capitalists (the Wilcoxes) considering themselves as aristocrats, whose only god is money ; the enlightened bourgeois (the Schlegels), humanistic and philanthropist ; and the workers (the Basts), fighting to survive. The Schlegel sisters' humanism will be torn apart as they try both to softly knock down the Wilcox's prejudices and to help the Basts.

Writers: E.M. Forster, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Cast:
Vanessa Redgrave - Ruth Wilcox
Helena Bonham Carter - Helen Schlegel
Joseph Bennett - Paul Wilcox
Emma Thompson - Margaret Schlegel
Prunella Scales - Aunt Juley
Adrian Ross Magenty - Tibby Schlegel
Jo Kendall - Annie
Anthony Hopkins - Henry J. Wilcox
James Wilby - Charles Wilcox
Jemma Redgrave - Evie Wilcox
Ian Latimer - Stationmaster
Samuel West - Leonard Bast
Mary Nash - Pianist
Siegbert Prawer - Man Asking a Question
Susie Lindeman - Dolly Wilcox

Release Date: 13 March 1992

Filming Locations: Admiralty Arch, The Mall, St. James's, London, England, UK

Opening Weekend: $52,568 (USA) (13 March 1992) (1 Screen)

Gross: $25,967,000 (USA)

Runtime: 140 min

Trivia:
The country house used as the location for Howards End is actually over twice as large as seen from the front and partial side views used in the film. It is H-shaped, with a large back portion that the family that owned it moved into during filming, while the front portion was emptied and refinished. (The landscaping was also redone, with flowers and plants more true to the story's period.) The home is owned by friends of the movie's production designer, Luciana Arrighi, and it occurred to her it would make a good stand-in for Howard's End while she was a house guest there.

Goofs:
Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Miss Margaret Schlegel (Emma Thompson) comes down the stairs and first meets Mr. Bast (when he attempts to retrieve his umbrella), Margarete calls her sister "Helena" and not "Helen". Helena is the real name of the actress portraying the sister (Helena Bonham Carter), and "Helen" is her characters name.

Quotes:
Helen Schlegel: Did you see the dawn?
Leonard Bast: Yes. It suddenly got light.
Helen Schlegel: And was it wonderful?
Leonard Bast: No.
[girls giggle]

The Thompson Factor

Rating: 10/10

If it's raining, if it's late, if I'm tired of working, if I'm restless or if I'm in a quandary of sorts, "Howard's End". I put the film on and Emma Thompson - presumably with the help of her accomplices, Ivory, Jhavhala, Hopkins etc - takes me away from whatever mood I'm trying to escape and leads me through her own, brilliantly drawn, gently torturous path. I don't recall when was the last time an actress has had this kind of power over my own psyche. The film is constructed with an Ivory attention to detail worthy of a vintage Visconti. The screenplay has no lapses of any kind and never falls into the usual traps. Loyal to its source material and yet, cinematic in the most revolutionary traditional sense of the word. The Britishness of Anthony Hopkins character is turned upside down giving us a glimpse into a character that's a mass of contradictions. But it is Emma Thompson's film from beginning to end. What a glorious achievement.

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