Howards End ***** (1992, Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Vanessa Redgrave, Helena Bonham Carter, Samuel West, Prunella Scales, Jemma Redgrave, James Wilby) – Classic Movie Review 449

James Ivory’s triple Oscar-winning 1992 film is in many ways his masterpiece, certainly a close tie with The Remains of the Day (1993). Director Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant’s third adaptation of an E M Forster novel is a work of inspiring beauty, intelligence and imagination.

Arguably, they have topped even their A Room with a View (1985) and Maurice (1987) with a still more lavish and glorious re-creation of England in the Edwardian period, and Ivory has coaxed three great performances from Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson and Helen Bonham Carter, all seen here at their finest. They are absolutely extraordinary. Thompson won the 1993 Oscar, Golden Globe and Bafta for Best Actress.

It is a tale of the collision of three social classes – the greedy old capitalists (the Wilcoxes), the philanthropic, artistic middle-class (the Schlegels) and the poor, downtrodden workers (the Basts). Sisters Margaret and Helen Schlegel are tested as they try to end the Wilcoxes’ prejudices and help the Basts.

Hopkins stars as Henry J Wilcox, a stuffy, money-obsessed businessman, who falls for the free-spirited Margaret Schlegel (Thompson) after his wife Ruth (Vanessa Redgrave) dies. Bonham Carter plays Thompson’s sister, Helen Schlegel, who tries with disastrous results to help a working-class married man, Leonard Bast (Samuel West). West’s real-life mother Prunella Scales is great fun playing the comic relief as the Schlegel sisters’ dotty auntie, Aunt Juley.

The other key characters are played by James Wilby as Henry Wilcox’s dangerously stupid son Charles, Nicola Duffett as Bast’s wife Jacky, Susie Lindeman as Charles’s sister Dolly Wilcox, Barbara Hicks as Howards End housekeeper Miss Avery and Adrian Ross Magenty as Margaret and Helen’s brother Tibby Schlegel. 

Also in the cast are Jo Kendall, Peter Cellier, Crispin Bonham Carter, Margery Mason and Joseph Bennett.

Arguably, Howards End is Forster’s finest achievement, but the screenplay is a gem and keeps the faith with the author. German screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala writes excellent dialogue for the actors to deliver and skilfully develops Forster’s perennially relevant theme about the clash between a mundane life of money and capitalism and the inspired life of art and the mind.

The film looks an Edwardian treat thanks to the lavish location filming in London and Oxfordshire, Tony Pierce-Roberts’s gorgeous cinematography, Luciana Arrighi’s glorious production designs and Jenny Beavan and John Bright’s costumes.

At the 1993 Academy Awards, Thompson won the 1993 Best Actress Oscar, Jhabvala won for Best Adapted Screenplay, and there was a third for the art direction (Luciana Arrighi)-set decoration (Ian Wittaker), acknowledging the film’s elegant beauty. There were six more Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress (Vanessa Redgrave).

Ivory and Merchant won the 1993 BAFTA Film Award for Best Film.

Simon Callow from A Room with a View has an unbilled cameo as a Music and Meaning Lecturer. He suggested casting Thompson. Jemma Redgrave (Evie Wicox) plays the daughter of Vanessa Redgrave (Ruth Wilcox). In real life she is her niece.

Merchant paid $250,000 for the rights to the novel to the trustees of Forster’s estate, King’s College in Cambridge. He considered this exorbitant, but he had to match a simultaneous Hollywood offer.

Ivory and Merchant were awarded the BAFTA Fellowship for their films’ ‘visual beauty, mature and intelligent themes, shrewd casting and superb acting’ in 2002.

Ivory turned 89 on 7 June 2017. Merchant died on 25 May 2005, aged 68. Jhabvala died on 3 April 2013, aged 85.

The BFI releases a new 25th-anniversary restoration of Howards End on 28 July 2017.

© Derek Winnert 2013 Classic Movie Review 449

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