Howards End (1992) Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter, Vanessa Redgrave, Joseph Bennett Movie Review

Howards End (1992)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Emma Thompson and Helena Bonham Carter in Howards End (1992)

In The End, its not for Me

Whilst in London on a temporary basis Ruth Wilcox (Vanessa Redgrave) becomes close friends with Margaret Schlegel (Emma Thompson) a little surprising as whilst the Wilcox family worship money the Schlegel's are more philanthropic. Plus there is history as Margaret's sister Helen (Helena Bonham Carter) had a brief engagement to Ruth's son Paul (Joseph Bennett). But whilst Ruth and Margaret share a friendship the Schlegels also find themselves involved with Leonard Bast (Samuel West) a working class clerk who is married but doesn't love his wife although is protective of her. Over the course of time Ruth's beloved home in the country, Howards End, becomes connected to all of them.

I've been asked many things over my time of being an avid movie watcher/reviewer and one which I get quite frequently is choose to watch a movie that is outside of your comfort zone and you have a feeling you won't enjoy. One of those reasons is so that those who share a similar like and dislike of movies to myself don't need to waste time watching a movie if I say it is as expected not my sort of thing. The other reason is that once in a blue moon one of these movies takes me by surprise and ends up a captivating experience. Sadly "Howards End" is not one of those movies and is more of a case that it was as I expected not my sort of thing.

Anthony Hopkins in Howards End (1992)

The thing is that "Howards End" does have an impressive production and whilst I have never been a huge lover of this sort of period costume drama I can not ignore the amount of detail which fills every scene. It isn't that I would say that "Howards End" is an epic movie, it needs to tick a far greater number of boxes to achieve that, but visually it certainly has a look. At the same time it also has quite an impressive cast although as we are talking period costume drama here some of them come across far too theatrical and that leads to an element of pretentiousness.

The trouble with the acting also comes from what I often find from these sorts of movies is a lethargic story telling style as people waffle on but the story never really seems to progress. In fairness those who have a passion for the theatre and its verbose nature will probably like the dialogue heavy nature of "Howards End" but for me it adds to all the things which are not so much wrong with the movie but are a struggle for me.

What this all boils down to is that "Howards End" is in truth an okay movie but it is a movie which isn't for me and its wordy nature did little too entertain me.


LATEST REVIEWS