The movie Howard's End is based on the novel Howard's End, written by E.M. Foster in 1910. Emma Thompson plays Margaret Schlegel and won an Oscar for best actress.
Plot Synopsis
The story is about the three social classes in England in the beginning of twentieth century: the aristocrats, the bourgeois and the middle-class.
Henry J Wilcox's wife Ruth dies and Wilcox destroys his wife Ruth's bequest, in which she gave her favorite possession, Howard's End, a cottage, to a woman named Margaret Schlegel. He marries Margaret soon after. She forgives Wilcox's affair with a woman named Jackie in the past. Margaret and her sister Helen drift apart because of Henry's attitude towards the [[[middle class]]. Later Helen Schlegel becomes pregnant by Leonard Bast, Jackie's' husband. Because of this, Henry refuses Helen to stay in the Howard's End. Margaret becomes angry with Henry's double stand about sexual propriety of men and women and leaves Henry. Then after the dramatic incidents, Henry reveals Ruth's bequest.
Cast
Vanessa Redgrave as Ruth Wilcox
Helena Bonham Carter as Helen Schlegel
Joseph Bennett as Paul Wilcox
Emma Thompson as Margaret Schlegel
Prunella Scales as Aunt Juley
Adrian Ross Magenty as Tibby Schlegel
Jo Kendall as Annie
Anthony Hopkins as Henry J. Wilcox
James Wilby as Charles Wilcox
Jemma Redgrave as Evie Wilcox
Ian Latimer as Stationmaster
Samuel West as Leonard Bast
Mary Nash as Pianist
Siegbert Prawer as Man Asking a Question
Susie Lindeman as Dolly Wilcox
Reviews
"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," — Rita Kempley, The Washington Post Staff Writer.
"A handsome and intelligent piece of work : a faithful, well-paced, and carefully crafted dramatization of a very good story." — Terrence Rafferty, The New Yorker