A review of the classic 1992 film”Howards End”
Following the success of “A Room With A View” (1985) and “Maurice” (1987), this was the third adaptation of a novel by E M Forster – a quintessentially English tale – by the talented trio, director James Ivory (American), producer Ismail Merchant (Indian) and writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (British-American). Set in Edwardian Britain, on the surface, it is a kind of “Sense And Sensibility”, following the fortunes of two sisters from an intellectual Anglo-German bourgeois family: Margaret Schlegel (sense), played by Emma Thompson, and younger sibling Helen Schlegel (sensibility), portrayed by Helena Bonham Carter. One marries a rich businessman (Anthony Hopkins), while the other falls for a lowly clerk (Samuel West). The starry cast includes a smaller role for Vanessa Redgrave as the owner of the titular property.
The film is a sharp observation of the appalling inequalities of the time when great wealth could be accrued by a few, while job insecurity was the norm for so many, and class relations were so divisive. The costumes and the carriages are so evocative of this age at the turn of the 20th century. Ivory, Merchant and Jhabvala invite us to consider how much has really changed. This is one of those movies that achieved multiple nominations (nine at the Academy Awards and 11 at the BAFTAs) but won many fewer actual awards (three and two respectively), perhaps an indication of the overall quality of the work but a reason why it is not better remembered.
Footnote: Howards End does not exist. In the book, Forster based his description on a house in the hamlet of Rooks Nest in Hertfordshire, his childhood home from 1883 to 1893. In the film, the location is Peppard Cottage in Rotherfield Peppard, Oxfordshire. In both works, a recurrent theme is who will eventually own the property which acts a symbol for England’s social future.