The women might all have stepped out of a cameo and the men from Leicester Square. That's thanks to the talents of Merchant and Ivory, whose careful reconstructions of the period are doubtless better than the real 1900s. The characters, all beautifully drawn to start with, seem not to have stepped from the pages of a leather-bound book, but straight out of pre-World War I England. And much to the chagrin of the Schlegels, Margaret accepts. Wilcox becomes completely captivated by Margaret and to his children's horror, proposes to her. As a penance for their duplicity, it seems the Wilcoxes can do nothing but run into the Schlegels. Wilcox, who leaves her estate, Howards End, to Margaret - a bequest the Wilcoxes unanimously agree to ignore. Saintly, shining Margaret Schlegel (Emma Thompson) becomes a good friend to the ailing Mrs. Nevertheless, they meet again, when the Wilcoxes (Vanessa Redgrave and Anthony Hopkins) take a flat opposite the Schlegels' London town house. On a visit to the Wilcoxes' manicured country home, blithe, flighty Helen Schlegel (Helena Bonham Carter) falls for the Wilcoxes' youngest son, an affair that ends so badly that the families would as soon avoid each other ever after. The Schlegel sisters, vivacious European sophisticates, are fated by Forster's pen to repeatedly encounter, engage and enlighten the prosperous, veddy British Wilcoxes. Set at the confluence of the 19th and 20th centuries, Forster's romantic satire concerns the shaky union of two disparate families through a succession of literary coincidences.
Something is bound to give, if only a stitch in the social fabric. At the same time, it reveals a perversely constricting under-structure of tightly laced corsets and lingering Victorianism. Forster's novels "Maurice" and "Room With a View" to screen, have outdone themselves in the sublime "Howards End." A sumptuous return to Forster's England, it portrays a people as plump as the scones they devour at tea time and a mood as expansive as King Edward's waistline. Best Actress Adapted Screenplay Art Directionĭirector James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant, who also brought E.M.
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