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One of Merchant Ivory's biggest successes, Howards End is a near-flawless production of a complex E.M. Forster novel about the separation of classes in England in the first decade of the twentieth century. It and A Passage to India might be called "The Curse of English Priggishness", but screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala is scrupulously fair to all of her characters. Although stories like this tend to look to the younger generation for enlightenment, in Howards End young people are the worst prigs as well as the most foolish liberals. A more taxing experience than Merchant Ivory's A Room With A View, Howards End is even more rewarding. It's like a really good book with vivid, perfectly imagined characters. Outgoing Margaret Schlegel (Emma Thompson) lives in London and becomes fast friends with the ill Ruth Wilcox (Vanessa Redgrave), whom she met on a German vacation. They easily surmount a social gaffe from the summer before, a brief engagement of Margaret's impulsive sister Helen (Helena Bonham Carter) to a Wilcox son. The Wilcoxes are a successful business family thanks to the stewardship of the industrious but closed-minded Henry Wilcox (Anthony Hopkins). When Ruth dies her relatives are horrified to find a piece of paper willing her ancestral home to her new friend Margaret, and they quickly destroy it. Young Helen involves herself in helping a downtrodden clerk, Leonard Bast (Samuel West). She solicits unfortunate advice from Henry that causes Bast to lose his job. All of this happens while the decent but resolutely intolerant Henry Wilcox makes plans to wed Margaret. It takes a lot of unnecessary suffering but Ruth's will is eventually honored, in an ironic and roundabout way. Families are collections of people that often work against their own best interests. If Howards End were a modern miniseries it would simply be about a lot of greedy relatives struggling for possession of a choice piece of real estate, the Howards End of the title. E.M. Forster's novel, adapted with typical excellence by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, gives us a complex web of characters in a particular social situation. The adorable Margaret Schlegel openly admits that she talks too much. She's practical and open to change, and the possibility of an advantageous marriage outweighs the fact that, as much as she admires the gentlemanly Henry Wilcox, getting along with him is going to be a struggle. Henry is polite and fair in his own way -- he presents his wife's last-minute will before his family in a neutral tone. We can see the disappointment on his face when his sons immediately declare it a fake, even though he certainly doesn't want to honor it either. Henry can be imperious with his kin and is apt to become obstinate and unreasonable under pressure, and his engagement to Margaret has a lot of stressful moments. The movie is uncommonly kind to some of its characters. Some might consider Vanessa Redgrave's sickly Ruth a spoiled businessman's wife but her character is almost angelic. Her children are inconsiderate brats overly concerned with their inheritances. The main son seems to be warped by his father's domination and itches to exercise his privileges over others. But Margaret's headstrong "progressive" sister Helen is little better. She initially connects with the poor Leonard Bast over a common interest in music and literature, seeing him as a sort of civic improvement project. Although we know Bast to be the kind of dreamer unlikely to excel in his work, in her eyes he is deserving. With some cause she eventually decides that his entire situation is the result of bad faith on the part of Henry Wilcox. Helen makes scenes and causes unnecessary trouble almost as a rebuff to Henry's self-serving philosophy that the poor are better left to fend for themselves. The story so intertwines the fates and faults of the Wilcoxes, Schlegels and Basts that it is difficult to decide who exactly is responsible for the tragedies that result. The unfolding of events is as absorbing as drama gets, and every seeming coincidence of plotting is in fact sustained by logical cause and effect. The interesting conclusion has an affinity with the unpredictable outcomes in real life -- who survives and who perishes, and what becomes of the proud and the humble. It's hard to overpraise the acting here. Emma Thompson, Vanessa Redgrave, Anthony Hopkins (fresh from The Silence of the Lambs) are fascinating to watch. Helena Bonham Carter is as frustratingly meddlesome here as she is adorable in The Room With A View. Samuel West plays the starving clerk without straining for sympathy, and as his wife Jacky, Nicola Duffett does well in a problem role. The actors playing Hopkins' immediate heirs have perhaps the hardest job of all. The sons and wives are a hateful pack of snooty ingrates obsessed with inherited wealth. Some of them squirm uncomfortably under Henry's domination, yet none are simple villains. Howards End sorts them all out in a satisfying way. Forster's indictment of English attitudes does not extend to his picture of English justice. Being the heir of a millionaire doesn't spare a character the consequences of an unintended killing. The film was nominated for nine Oscars and won three, for best Art Direction, Jhabvala's script adaptation and Emma Thompson's acting. The film was abundantly honored at other awards ceremonies; Ms. Thompson won the Golden Globe as well. The Criterion Collection's Blu-ray of Howards End is a classy update of a disc from an earlier line of Merchant-Ivory releases. One of the prolific production team's best-looking films, Howards End was originally released in 70mm in some cities and upgrades quite handsomely to the HD format. The picture and HD master audio have been approved by cinematographer Tony Pierce-Roberts and director James Ivory. Criterion producers Kim Hendrickson and Marc Walkow (who guided the entire earlier Merchant-Ivory line) have secured a bounty of extras. A new documentary gathers input from Helena Bonhan-Carter, designer Jenny Benson and Luciana Arrighi, James Ivory and the late Ismael Merchant. A second feature examines the film's designs in greater detail. The Wandering Company gives us a half-hour history of the unique company Merchant-Ivory Productions. Also included are an original featurette and trailer; Kenneth Turan supplies the essay for the insert booklet.
On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor,
Howard's End Blu-ray rates:
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