Howard’s End

Ishmail Merchant

Screenplay:

Ruth Prawler Jhabvala (The Golden Bowl, Heat and Dust, A Room with a View)

Music:

Cast:

Margaret Schlegel: Emma Thompson (Carrington, Dead Again, Henry V, In The Name of the Father, Junior, Much Ado About Nothing, Sense and Sensibility, The Tall Guy, The Winter Guest)
Helen Schlegel: Helena Bonham Carter (Lady Jane Grey, Hamlet (1991), Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Mighty Aphrodite, A Room with a View, Where Angels Fear To Tread, The Wings of the Dove)
Mrs Wilcox: Vanessa Redgrave (The Ballad of Sad Cafe, Blow Up, The Bostonians, Camelot, Deep Impact, Isadora, Julia, Mary Queen of Scots, Mission: Impossible, Mrs Dalloway, Murder on the Orient Express, Prick Up Your Ears, Steaming, Wetherby, Yanks)
Leonard Bast: Samuel West (F)
Henry Wilcox: Anthony Hopkins (84 Charing Cross Road, Amistad, August, The Bounty, A Bridge Too Far, Bram Stoker’s Desperate Hours, Dracula, The Edge, The Elephant Man, The Good Father, Great Expectations (1997), Legends of the Fall, Magic, The Mask of Zorro, Meet Joe Black, Nixon, The Remains of the Day, The Road to Wellville, Sense and Sensibility, Shadowlands, Silence of the Lambs, Surviving Picasso, When Eight Bells Toll)

Howard’s End tells the tale of two well-to-do sisters, Margaret Schlegel (Emma Thompson) and Helen Schlegel (Helena Bonham Carter) and their relationship with the Wilcox family.

Neighbours, everybody needs good neighbours, but while Margaret gets to know the ailing Mrs Wilcox (Vanessa Redgrave) very well, Helen’s interests lead elsewhere after she shuns the Wilcox’s after a dead-in-the-water relationship with one of their sons, instead choosing to seek solace in the arms of unhappily-married young bank clerk Leonard Bast (Samuel West).

When Mrs Wilcox shuffles off her mortal coil and Margaret learns that Howard’s End, the late lady’s country house, is left to her. Now widower Henry Wilcox (Anthony Hopkins) is less than happy and turns his late wife’s will into charcoal, but as the world turns an intimacy develops between the two warring parties and this and the drama that ensues looks set to end with tragic consequences.

The film is presented in its original widescreen ratio of 2.35:1 and is anamorphic, providing 33% extra resolution for those with widescreen televisions. The picture is sharp and detailed but while the colours look rather lacklustre at times, this is more a reflection of the tone of the period as opposed to a bad transfer, which it certainly isn’t. The average bitrate is a fine 5.64Mb/s, briefly peaking around 9Mb/s.

Be careful if you watch this film in widescreen on video. When first released for rental, the matte was opened up to about 1.85:1 but the framing was comfortable.

The back cover states the sound is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 for English only, but the soundtrack is more full of soft, lilting music than whizz-bang entertainment.

Extras :

Chapters and Trailer : Only 16 chapters and it’s a very long film. More please. The original theatrical trailer is included.

Languages and Subtitles : Dolby Digital 5.1 in English, with subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing in the same language.

And there’s more…: There’s a featurette: 30th Anniversary Merchant Ivory Promo, lasting little more than four minutes and recorded for Cinemax and announcing some of the films they’re showing in a special week-long tribute to the partnership. So, yes, slightly outdated. Also, the enclosed booklet provides some production notes, a synopsis and cast biographies.

The Interviews combine seven minutes of chat into one easy chunk, or several bitesize pieces featuring all the main cast members, plus Messrs. Merchant and Ivory. Some get plenty of talk-time, eg. Anthony Hopkins gets almost two minutes, while James Wilby gets a pitiful 16 seconds. Behind the scenes provides you with 8 minutes in the life of the cast and crew as they hang about, shoot some scenes or chit-chat amongst themselves and the Howard’s End Featurette plays out like an extended trailer mixing in clips of the film with snippets of the aforementioned interviews.

Menu : A simple, but good-looking static menu with a shot of Helena Bonham Carter and options to start the film, select a scene, watch the trailer, choose subtitles or view the pieces of the electronic press kit as mentioned above.

Fans of Merchant Ivory films will no doubt snap this DVD up, but it didn’t particularly grab me at all and only started to arouse my interest towards the end when…well, I can’t really divulge that can I?

Those thinking of choosing the Region 1 DVD should note that the only benefit it seems to have over this edition is more chapters – twelve more to be exact.

FILM : * PICTURE QUALITY: **** SOUND QUALITY: **½ EXTRAS: ***½ ——————————- OVERALL: **½

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2000.