Very disappointing...

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Blistering performances.

Sister Helen Schlegel (Helena Bonham Carter) and Margaret Schlegel (Emma Thompson) are enlightened bourgeoisie. The Wilcoxes are rich and money-obsessed. Helen befriends matriarch Ruth Wilcox (Vanessa Redgrave). On her death bed, Ruth leaves her ancestral home Howards End to Helen who is about to lose the lease to her family home. The note has no date and no signature. Henry Wilcox (Anthony Hopkins) and his children decide to burn the note and ignore Ruth's wishes. The Schlegel sisters take an interest in the poor dreamer clerk Leonard Bast. Later, Henry spends time with Helen and they get married.This is not my type of movies. It's long and slow and meandering. However, there is no denying that there is real craftsmanship here. The acting is superb. The movie looks beautiful. It's showing something about the classes in the era. However, I don't find the characters that compelling. The Schlegels talk too much. The Wilcoxes are too cold. Bast is too bitter. I can't really connect to any of these characters but the movie is still a masterpiece of filmmaking.

Helen Bonham Carter and Emma Thompson alone… what more can I say? Victorian-ish drama at it's best. There's outstanding dialog and Emma Thompson is at her prime: innocent and naively charming. I have some serious issues with the plot, but that's just because it's done so well that I've accumulated so much hate for certain characters. We are met with two families the Wilcox and the Schlegels. First of all the Wilcoxes in this film are complete assholes, except the mother who dies early on in the movie (don't worry I didn't ruin anything, everyone sees it coming).I didn't care for some of the turns that this film took, but this movie just pulls you in with all of their relationship with one another as well as the atmosphere of the film. Overall, this film has a great cast and an entertaining story interwoven with drama. A great watch.

Though lambasted by a minority as a Merchant/Ivory snoozer, Howard's End eventually inveigles its way into a thoughtful viewers mind with rather abundant ideas and plots about agency, good intentions in a weary/cynical world, passive cruelty, active cruelty, material transference, and cultural ascent, all stitched together in a story of class warfare, with surprising, sometimes hypocritical motivations. No one behaves as expected; as with Thompson selling out her values in preference to ascent; and the generally awful Hopkins secreting his true, malevolent nature, while fate endeavors to correct it in a roundabout way.There is far more than most films provide to digest. And the ideas put into play are far more interesting than other movies deign to investigate, and certainly better than other similar chatty, period Emma Thompson films (Sense and Sensibility) which are fatal to the life urge. It's also superior to Remains of the Day (also with Thompson and Hopkins). One can imagine a much more modern, intriguing film (not bogged down with politeness and high production values) with these ideas, but this is the film we've got; and it's fine.At no point can you guess where the circumlocutions will take you. Howard's End is a knot tied back into itself a half dozen times. I find its complexity extremely pleasing. Suffice it to say, this is 'Final Destination' for the thoughtful set.

Its well put message of social relations, as well as the tendencies shown by those very classes of people examines the more moral classifications of its focused characters. I never read the novel, but I found the film to be well made, using very well acted performances, as well focusing it's main subject of a plot to a more diverse issue other than the property of Howards end. The setting takes place in Edwardian England, the time of King Edward VII rule, and there are 3 classes shown to viewers each symbolizing some individual form of moral expression in the very nature of their actions. First off , we haves the Wilcox's, the typical aristocratic English family with nothing but wealth and false pride to justify themselves, believing they are above the poor and that anything is in their grasp. The head's of this family are the well mannered but secretively selfish Henry Wilcox (Hopkins) and the more compassionate Ruth Wilcox (Redgrave). The second class is the way above average, but lacking in arrogance Schelgel's. The 2 Schelegel sisters, Margaret (Thompson) and Helen (Carter) are both well educated, seeing very significant aspects in their fascinations with their forms of literature and art, Helen in particular. The 3rd and final family is the Bast's, the poor and struggling middle class that struggle all alone with what they have. The film's plot revolves around the very connection between these 3 classes. After foolishly continuing a doomed love affair with a Wilcox, Helens own faults and regrets serve as Margaret's motivations to bring both apologies and respect to an ailing, and later to be deceased Ruth for her sisters own faults. As times goes on, the two women share many fascinations, particularly their fondness of the homes they live in. Currently the Schelegels are moving out of their cherished Child hood home, and Ruth herself has treasured her own childhood home, Howards End. The nature of the Wilcox's become very clear at their response to Ruth's dying will to leave Howard's End to Margaret. Purged with both jealousy and bitterness, Henry burns what is truly Margaret's, only to later leave it to her in the film's conclusion. In the shared moments Henry and Margaret have, they become closer and closer, thus reaching a proposal that although makes Margaret happy, it will challenge both her moral place in choosing between the Wilcox's or her own family and their more sympathetic views. As I've mentioned, the Basts served as the film's struggling middle class. By a simple accident, and further twists of fate, the Basts became of great importance to Helen. In a simple incident involving an umbrella, and a falsely accused affair, Leonard Bast would become more acquainted with Helen, on both the knowledge of his profession and the views of his wife. Through the misguided advice of Henry, Leonard lost his Job, only to fall further down the road of struggling survival. Helen's good judgment served as her inspiration to help a man she barely knew, up until the moment the two fell for each others heart. Margaret on the other hand felt more of an obligation to her husband, and in doing nothing of the sort to help. In these times, people as snide and falsely elegant as the Wilcox's would look down on the poor, with some form pity, but with no desire to show compassion nor assistance. A lot of things in this film happen, and they simply show further more how this film examines so much more than just the relations of British social classes. Helen's friendship with Leonard and eventual barred child, Margaret's marriage and conflict with her sister, and Leonard's eventual death at the hands of a Wilcox all end in some meaningful conclusion, symbolizing a new form of evolution of British social classes. The Willcoxes represented the industrialists, while the Schelegels themselves were more liberal and sympathetic, and the Basts were the more ill fortunate and faced with more difficulty. I mentioned earlier that despite Henry hiding the will of Margaret's ownership of Howard's end, all came to a close when his heart came to change and feel grief and guilt. Howard's end is more than just the cherished memory of a deceased old woman, but it also represents a change in the way people lived. The film ends with Margaret now being the owner of the property, which houses both her and her sister Helen, and Leonard's son. The home of the Wilcox's ended up sheltering people of presumed lower classes. The film "Howards End", in my view also symbolized the individual talents of it's 3 leads. Emma Thompson's performance can be defined as charming and yet confused character when made to choose between Lineage and good common rationality. I was very impressed in particular by Helen Bo ham Carter's portrayal, symbolizing a very unique character who's fascination with multiple forms of art is of charming easiness. Anthony Hopkins was terrific, using a character that represents hypocrisy and just plain arrogance in the status of his family name. Director James Avery has made a film with the message of social equality, showing viewers the very dark nature of judging others, despite whatever class they are, in money, beliefs, or of whatever state in general.