Rating: 
Summary: Umbrellas and Fate
Review: A story that follows the lives of two unconventional sisters in England in the early 1900's (?), where class determined a great deal about the type of life a person would live.Generally, the movie follows the lives of the two open-minded sisters, particularly the eldest, played by Thompson, and how their lives twist and turn after meeting and attempting to assist a lower-class, but seemingly promising ordinary guy. The sisters paths also cross at several turns with the family presided over by Hopkins and Redgrave. As fate would have it, the lower-class bloke, the Hopkins/Redgrave clan and Thompson's family are all interconnected through various happenings in the past. All this is woven together artfully, and is not as contrived as it may sound in writing. A lush and visually pleasing movie, with a once in a lifetime cast of actors (and the trite question I must pose, have and will Bonham-Carter and Emma ever work together again, after the Branaugh affair?)including the formidable Anthony Hopkins and the even more formidable Redgrave. A thinking person's movie, about fate and life, teamed with fine actors, a great dramatic story line and excellent period costumes and settings.
Rating: 
Summary: One of Merchant and Ivory¿s Best
Review: Acting talent alone does not ensure a great film, but when you have a lineup like, "Howard's End", creating a bad film would be a chore. Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Vanessa Redgrave, Helena Bonham Carter, and Joseph Bennett are just the start of a phenomenal cast that brings this EM Forrester story to the screen. When you then have the duo of Merchant and Ivory together with all the talent they attract to create these period pieces, the result is always special. Some of their films are better than others, but all are very worthwhile. This film explores the results of reasonably small human actions that are greatly magnified, either through indifference or emotions that take control of common sense and a reasoned response to a given plight. The events and the consequences are exacerbated as the players come from 3 very different strata of London Society. And in this tale the three not only meet, they mix, and the results are dramatic at the very least, and tragic at their worst. The differing groups even join when Emma Thompson marries in to the highest level leaving her sister in the middle, while she, Helena Bonham Carter, insists on crashing every convention when she champions the cause of a poor couple whose plight she blames on her new in-laws. The relationship between the sisters that begins the film as warm and humorous, becomes strained, damaged, and nearly severed before the film's end. This is one of the richer Merchant and Ivory productions as it is not confined to a few picturesque homes, but is expanded to include vast cityscapes full of period transportation people and their costumes. This is not my favorite film they have done, but is certainly excellent when compared to films in general, and very good for this remarkable team of filmmakers.
Rating:
Summary: Perfection Personified
Review: Anthony Hopkins stars as Henry Wilcox, a member of England's ruling class who finds himself slipping into a romance with Margaret Schlegle (Emma Thompson) after his wife has passed away. However, before her death, Ruth Wilcox (Vanessa Redgrave) had stipulated that she wished to leave her family home "Howards End" to both Margaret and her sister, Helen (Helena Bonham-Carter). Of course the Wilcox family, being stuck up and spoiled, did not follow through with her wishes and this becomes the focal point of the plot. Along the way there is adultry, corruption, deception, original sins revisited and even murder - in short, everything one could expect from an impeccibly crafted story turned into a poignant and stirring film experience. Producers, James Ivory and Ismal Merchant have given us one of a handful of truly stirring dramatic/epics, filled with the sort of grand illusion and entertainment value that Hollywood used to provide en masse during the 1930's and 40's. This is definitely a worthwhile excursion.
Columbia has done a beautiful job on the transfer. There is absolutely nothing to complain about and I defy anyone to be disappointed with the quality of this mastering effort. My one regret, this disc comes with NO EXTRA FEATURES. Apart from this oversight, you must definitely take a road trip to Howards End.
Rating:
Summary: Hope for people waiting for the DVD of this classic
Review: Finally there is hope for people waiting for the DVD of this outstanding adaptation of E.M.Forster's book. I am sure that enough people have been baffled that this DVD has not been released for so long. Criterion has finally released a one disc version of this movie available only through Costco, but do not get this unless you are impatient. They are going to release a two disc special edition in 2005 (for general release), if you are prepared to wait long enough. I wrote to Jon Mulvaney at Criterion and got this response. This is one of the best movies of James Ivory and a lot of fans were frustrated that it was not available. Featuring a stunning cast, it was nominated for 9 academy awards and won 3, including Emma Thompson's Best Actress and Ruth Prawer Jhabwala's second one for screenplay. I do not have to describe the quality of the movie, enough people have done it. Thoughtful, melancholic and imaginative, this movie is one of best movies of the 90s. Wait long enough and you can get the best transfer of the movie with all additional features.
Rating:
Summary: "A million square miles are almost the same as heaven."
Review: I loved E.M. Forester's book, HOWARD'S END, so I knew I'd love this film as well. Period pieces are my favorites and English period pieces have a special "something" about them. Maybe it's the lush cinematography or the brilliant acting. I suppose it's really a combination of many things. HOWARD'S END is set, for the most part, in London, and revolves around two families: the Schlegels and the Wilcoxes. The Schlegels and the Wilcoxes are separated by class; the Schlegels are a middle class family, comfortable, but definitely not "old money," while the Wilcoxes are far more "to the manor born." Society, at the time HOWARD'S END takes place, dictated that the Schlegels and the Wilcoxes definitely not mix. However, mix they do, with disastrous results. In the Schlegel family are two sisters, Margaret (Emma Thompson), the older and plainer, and Helen (Helena Bonham-Carter), the younger and more beautiful. We know trouble is brewing when Helen becomes involved, though briefly, with young Paul Wilcox. Of course, the Wilcoxes consider Helen (or any Schlegel, for that matter) to be beneath them, but the affair also distresses the Schlegels as well. The lives of the Schlegels and the Wilcoxes are destined to be intertwined, however, and Margaret befriends Ruth Wilcox (beautifully played by the always-ethereal Vanessa Redgrave), the mother of young Paul. The lives of the two families become further entwined when Ruth Wilcox dies and leaves her lovely country home, "Howard's End," to her good friend, Margaret. Of course, this doesn't sit at all well with the Wilcoxes, who are truly shocked, and Henry Wilcox (Anthony Hopkins), Ruth's husband, tries to cover up Ruth's final wishes and keep Margaret away from "Howard's End." But that is far from the end of the story and far from the end of the intertwining of the lives of the Schlegels and the Wilcoxes. In a superb and tragic subplot, both Margaret and Helen attempt to befriend a poor clerk, Leonard Bast (Samuel West) and, without meaning to, cause him to lose his meager job and leave him with no hope for the future. The conclusion to this film is surprising and explosive, but the beautiful script by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala is quite understated and the film, like the book, never slips into melodrama. This is a period piece that is enhanced by flawless and understated acting from all. Emma Thompson as Margaret Schlegel is superb and she certainly deserved her Oscar for Best Actress for this film. Anthony Hopkins is, of course, flawless and Vanessa Redgrave's performance is subtle and beautifully nuanced. Samuel West, as the tragic Leonard Bast is wonderful as is Helena Bonham-Carter, though she is not the equal, at least in this film, of Thompson. HOWARD'S END isn't a particularly long book, but this is, at two and one-half hours, quite a long film. The pacing is rather slow and deliberate, but I never got the feeling that things should have been moving along any faster and, for me, at least, the two and one-half hours passed by very quickly. The film holds your interest at all times. HOWARD'S END is a film that contains a bit of everything. While it is tragic, there are times when you laugh or smile, there are times of unsurpassed beauty and there is melancholy and regret aplenty. I would definitely recommend HOWARD'S END to anyone even remotely interested in period pieces and even to those who aren't. Who knows, you just might find a new genre that you love.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Picture and Sound Quality on 2005 Release
Review: I've been waiting for some time for this film to be back in print (I was almost at the point of buying a used copy of the Columbia/Tristar release when I saw it was about to be released by Home Vision Entertainment). The writing, acting, and production of the film are all amazing, have been thoroughly covered by other reviewers, so I'll keep my comments on the picture and audio quality of this DVD set. I've only watched the feature film (and not the second DVD filled with extras), and I'm impressed with the quality of the video and sound transfers on the disc. I can't compare the video transfer of this release directly to the previous release of "Howards End," but I can say that this release looks much better (contrast seems better balanced and the picture seems sharper) than another Merchant/Ivory production released by Columbia/Tristar ("Remains of the Day"). The sound transfer is also very good, although I only listened to the stereo mix.
Rating:
Summary: Superb adaptation of Forster's masterpiece.
Review: Most of us connect the notion of "home" or "childhood home" with one particular place, that innocent paradise we have since had to give up and keep searching for forever after. In Ruth Wilcox's world, Howards End is that place; the countryside house where she was born, where her family often returns to spend their vacations, and which, everyone assumes, will pass on to her children when she is dead. And it is through Ruth Wilcox (Vanessa Redgrave)'s eyes that we first see Howards End; approaching the house after an evening walk through her beloved meadow, her long dress trailing in the grass, as she goes nearer, we see the open windows letting out warm light from inside, and hear the voices and laughter from the family's dinner table. And while Mrs. Wilcox returns to join her family's company, two others are leaving the house and its serene world: Helen Schlegel (Helena Bonham Carter) and Paul Wilcox, embarking on a passionate romance which is not even to survive the next morning - not before, however, Helen has informed her sister Margaret (Emma Thompson) that she and Paul are "in love," and thus set in motion the first of a series of confusing and controversial meetings between their families. While both families belong to the middle class, they are nevertheless separated by several layers of society and politics - the Wilcox, led by pater familias/businessman Henry (Anthony Hopkins), rich, conservative and without any sympathy whatsoever for those less fortunate than themselves ("It's all part of the battle of life ... The poor are poor; one is sorry for them, but there it is," Henry Wilcox once comments); the Schlegels, on the other hand, with just enough income to lead a comfortable life, brought up by their Aunt Juley (Prunella Scales), supporting suffrage (women's right to vote) and surrounding themselves with actors, "blue-stockings" (feminists), intellectuals and other members of the avantgarde. Further complexity is added when Helen brings to the Schlegel home Leonard Bast (Samuel West), a poor but idealistic young clerk who loves music, literature and astronomy - and with him, his working class wife Jacky (Nicola Duffett), the embarrassment of having to interact with her, and the even more embarrassing revelation she has in store for Henry Wilcox; eventually leaving her disillusioned husband to comment that "books aren't real," and that in fact they and music "are for the rich so they don't feel bad after dinner." E.M. Forster's novel on which this movie is based is a masterpiece of social study and character study alike; with empathy and a fine eye for detail, Forster brings his protagonists and their environment to life, and James Ivory matches his accomplishment in this screen realization, finding the perfect cast and production design (Luciana Arrighi) to reproduce the novel's Edwardian society; although he superstitiously declined the offer to film at Forster's boyhood home Rooks Nest, the model for the fictional Howards End. The movie brings together many of Britain's best-known actors, all trained in the English school which, as Anthony Hopkins once explained, unlike Lee Strasberg's Method Acting, is primarily based on restraint: there are no outbursts of emotion, self-control reigns supreme, and even a simple word like "yes" is reduced even further to "hmm," leaving it to the actor's intonation alone to convey the word's (or sound's) deeper meaning in a given context. And yet, vocal intonation, looks and little gestures often speak louder than dramatic actions ever could, and they are as essential to the movie's sense of authenticity as are production design, cinematography (Tony Pierce-Roberts), soundtrack (Richard Robbins) and the selection of the movie's non-scored music: excerpts from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, a favorite with the "educated" Edwardian middle class, and pieces by period composers Andre Derain and Percy Grainger. The story centers around Margaret (Meg) Schlegel, who is "filled with ... a profound vivacity, a continual and sincere response to all that she encounter[s] in her path through life," as Forster described her, and portrayed to perfection by Emma Thompson. Meg's friendship with Ruth Wilcox brings the families back together after Helen's near-scandalous episode with Paul; and the two women become so close that Ruth eventually decides to give Meg "something worth [her] friendship" - none other than Howards End, a wish that has her panicking family scramble ungentlemanly for every reason in the book to invalidate the codicil setting forth that bestowal, from its lacking date and signature to the testatrix's state of mind, the ambiguity of the writing's content, the question why Meg should want the house in the first place since she already has one, and the fact that the writing is only in pencil, which "never counts," as Dolly, wife of the Wilcox' elder son Charles is quick to point out, only to be reprimanded by her father in law "from out of his fortress" (Forster) not to "interfere with what you do not understand." And so it is that Meg will only see the house (and be instantly mistaken for Ruth because she has "her way of walking around the house," as the housekeeper explains) when she and her siblings have to look for a new home and Henry Wilcox, who has started to court her after Ruth's death, suggests that the Schlegel's furniture be temporarily stored there - a fateful decision. And while Meg and Henry slowly and painfully learn to adjust to each other, the complexity of their families' relations, and their interactions with the Basts, finally come crashing down on them in a dramatic conclusion. Howards End deservedly won 1992's Academy Awards for Best Actress (Thompson), Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Art Direction; and it was also nominated in the Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress (Redgrave), Best Original Score, Best Cinematography and Best Costume Design categories. Unfortunately, its subtle tones have recently been muted somewhat by the louder sounds now filling movie theaters. I for one, however, will take this sublime movie over any summer action flick anytime.
Rating: 
Summary: Problems
Review: Send a DVD that is not viewable in Canada despite shipping the product to Canada. Has not provided a refund since the DVD was returned over a month ago. Overall very unsatisfactory and unreliable.
Rating: 
Summary: Well made -- but the movie drags.
Review: This is likely the best of all the Merchant and Ivory films in terms of its gravity and social statement, which uses the superb cast to great advantage here in telling this tale of social class privileges and prejudices in turn-of-the century British society. Of course, Sir Anthony Hopkins' performance as the overbearing scion of an upper class family who rubs shoulders, ankles, and misfortunes with an upper-middle class family headed by Emma Thompson. The storyline is complex, full of nuances and twists and turns that bear amazingly well on the whole character of the English class system and the way it both benefits the upper classes as well as the ways in which it bedevils and obstructs everyone else. For example, just to listen to one of Sir Anthony's tirades about how the misfortune of another was brought on by themselves and therefore deserved is to instantly understand how little compassion, insight, or indulgence the upper class was likely to extend to its less fortunate brothers and sisters. It is a quite intelligent sociological exploration of the nature of the class system and how differences in perception, expectation, and resources create a panoply of emotions, circumstances, and consequences when the classes and the different generations clash. What comes across most clearly is the attitude of entitlement and privilege the upper class brings to each and every social situation. Something about having all that money and power that lends itself to an air of confidence! Some things never change. The story is adapted from an E. M Forrester story, so has all the earmarks of authenticity one would expect from such an English author. The acting is uniformly superb, from Hopkins to Thompson to Vanessa Redgrave to Helena Bonham Carter, and the sets are absolutely superb, as well. This is serious drama, taken from the pages of a chronicle of personal lives entwining in such memorable ways and seething with passion, love, courage, betrayal, and tragedy. Yet, as we see it the end, all comes round to a remarkable example of typically English stoicism and endurance. This is a lovely period piece film, and one I am sure you will like. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: This movie is GREAT!
Review: This is one of the best movies I have ever seen!!! Not only is my favorite actor in it(Sir Anthony Hopkins) who gives a brilliant performance as usual but the story is quite strong, also. Normally I don't enjoy period pieces too much but the acting in this film is spectacular! I love the way that Thompson plays a character that is strong, independent and yet so weak when it comes to her husband(Hopkin's). If you have enjoyed Hopkins and Thompson's work before you will not be dissapointed by this great film.
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