Howards End (1992)
Directed by James Ivory

Film Review

After A Room With a View (1985) and Maurice (1987), the internationally acclaimed team of producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory completed their trilogy of E.M. Forster adaptations with Howards End, one of their grandest and most accomplished productions.  Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's screenplay not only crams in virtually the entire plot of Forster's novel (no mean achievement) but also, and more crucially, many of the social and political themes that make it such an important piece of literature, one that is still relevant to this day. With so much narrative content, the film could have been unwieldy and turgid, but such is the sheer elegance of James Ivory's mise-en-scène and the near-perfection of the acting that it is never less than absorbing from start to finish, a sumptuous feast for both the eye and the intellect.

True to the novel on which it is intimately based, Howards End provides an incisive and ironic commentary on the social divisions that existed in late Edwardian England - divisions that showed no signs of diminishing as the nouveaux riches began to supplant the aristocracy and sought to protect themselves with their own self-serving morality.  The two families depicted in the story represent the conflicting attitudes of the British haute bourgeoisie at that time - the self-interested capitalists (the Wilcoxes) and the enlightened but slightly hypocritical intellectuals (the Schelgels).  They both look down on the lower middleclass (represented by the unfortunate Basts), with indifference in the one case, and patronising amusement in the other.  Although the Basts are gradually destroyed by the ruthlessness of the Wilcoxes and the ineffectual meddling of the Schelgels, they emerge as the winners, as it is their descendents who ultimately inherit the prize that the Wilcoxes are so keen to hold on to, a small country house named Howards End.  Through some inspired screenwriting, the film condenses Forster's darkly comical critique of his own time and his aspirations for a more equitable society into a compelling study in human frailty, in which the tragic outcome for one individual begets the glimmer of a hope for a better society at some point in the future.  The fact that Forster's concerns are still relevant adds to the film's slightly bitter poignancy.

As beautifully rendered as the film is, what makes this a particularly strong entry in the Merchant-Ivory canon is the quality of the performances from the faultlessly assembled cast.  Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins would seem to be an unlikely match but their on-screen rapport is dynamite, and you can see why they were given top billing in James Ivory's next film, The Remains of the Day (1993).  The vitality and good-natured innocence that define Thompson's portrayal bring into sharp relief the fatal character flaws that Hopkins subtly exposes in his performance.  It is a kind of Beauty and the Beast coupling, except that the inherent goodness of Thompson's character prevents her from seeing the darker, more monstrous side of the man she is instinctively drawn to, a man whose motives for marrying her are far from evident and may well be governed more by guilt than by desire.  The secondary romantic strand is handled with just as much delicacy and depth by Helena Bonham Carter and Samuel West, two actors whose reputation for excellence is amply born out by their work in this film.  The supporting contributions from Vanessa Redgrave, Prunella Scales, Jo Kendall and James Wilby are all just as deserving of praise, and if the film does have a false note it is certainly not to be found anywhere near the acting front.

A significant critical and commercial success on its first release, Howards End was nominated for nine Oscars in 1993, in categories that included Best Picture, Best Director and Best Cinematography, and it won three awards, for its screenplay, art direction and lead actress (Emma Thompson).   The film also took two BAFTAs - for Best Film and Best Actress (Thompson again) and earned James Ivory the 45th Anniversary Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1992.  In common with the previous Merchant-Ivory masterpieces, A Room With a View and Maurice, Howards End helped to rekindle interest in one of England's finest (and all too easily overlooked) novelists.  Excelling in virtually every department, it stands as one of British cinema's most outstanding literary adaptations.  How sad that the film's social themes still strike such a powerful chord.  E.M. Forster's Utopian vision of a society in which a country's wealth is in the hands of the many rather than the trotters of a greedy minority is still a desperately long way off.  It will be many years yet before the Basts receive their rightful inheritance.

Film Synopsis

England, circa 1910.  When Helen Schlegel and Paul Wilcox break off their engagement, it is to the relief of both of their families.  After the Wilcoxes have taken a house in London near to the Schlegels, Helen's older sister Meg forms a close friendship with Paul's mother Ruth, who is dying from an incurable illness.  On her deathbed, Ruth Wilcox writes an informal will bequeathing her country house Howards End to Meg Schlegel.  The wealthy entrepreneur Henry Wilcox is astonished when he receives the will and hastily destroys it, believing that his wife was not in her right mind when she wrote it.  With the lease on her London apartment soon to expire, Meg turns to Henry to help her find new accommodation.  He responds by asking her to marry him and she accepts, honoured by the proposal.  Meanwhile, Helen Schlegel has taken an interest in a young clerk named Leonard Bast, a man with a sensitive and romantic nature.  When Henry advises Leonard that the insurance company he works for is heading for bankruptcy, the clerk obtains a lesser paid position with a bank, only to lose this job a short while later.  Stricken with guilt, the philanthropically minded Helen puts pressure on her sister to persuade Henry to find Leonard another position, but her efforts prove fruitless when Henry recognises Leonard's wife as the woman he once had an affair with and later abandoned.  Then Helen drops her bombshell: she is pregnant with Leonard's child...