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Bookmark this pageHowards End (1991)
Director: James Ivory
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Margaret, Helen and Tibby Schlegel are bright, beautiful and, compared with most Edwardians, open-minded. The Wilcoxes, with the sole exception of Mrs Wilcox, are not. When Helen (Bonham Carter) carries a torch for Paul Wilcox (Bennett), she gets her fingers burned, but Margaret (Thompson) strikes up a friendship with Mrs Wilcox (Vanessa Redgrave), who then goes and spoils it all by dying. Her last wish is for Margaret to have her house in the country, Howards End, but the wicked Wilcoxes destroy the will and deny Margaret her inheritance. Then, would you believe it, Mr Wilcox (Hopkins) falls for her... Thus the stage is set for a saga of marriage, idealism, despair, pregnancy, exile and manslaughter conducted to the sound of skeletons rattling in the closet. This is as close as EM Forster ever came to a revenger's tragedy, and the only way Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's overlong screenplay can incorporate all the incident is by having more black-outs than a convention of epileptics. The performances are impeccable, but honours go to Thompson, who manages to make Margaret's saintliness actually seem seductive.Author: MS
User reviews of this film
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- benjamin ross said...
- Posted on Apr 25 2009 19:30 i really liked this film. the performances are excellent and it's a fantastic story
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Cast & crew
Director: James Ivory
Producer: Ismail Merchant
Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Vanessa Redgrave, Helena Bonham Carter, Emma Thompson, James Wilby, Samuel West, Prunella Scales, Jemma Redgrave, Joseph Bennett, Simon Callow full cast
Genre(s): Period/Swashbucklers
Duration: 142 mins
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