The quintessential Merchant-Ivory production: Howards End

How well you like Howards End will depend entirely on whether you (still) have a taste for the Merchant-Ivory formula because this 1980s film is the quintessential M-I production: selection of a classy British novel from early in the 20th century, staying slavishly faithful to the novel in the screenplay (Ruth Prawer Jhaabvala, as always), meticulously selected period details no expense barred - many vintage cars and horse-drawn carriages and English country houses and London flats that look as if they've been lifted whole from a museum diorama, typically fine classically trained lead actors and secondary cast - and in the end you feel you've done something noble by watching a classic instead of the 6th remake of Star Wars. But have you? Why not read the book, after all? (Maybe many people did both.) There's absolutely nothing wrong with this production (other than maybe the length - 2.5 hours!), and Emma Thompson and Helena Bonham-Carter are particularly excellent as the two Schlegl sisters (even if they're both too good-looking to play the part of as they put it "spinsters" - movies have to make some concession to un-reality). Forster's plot is excellent of course - and the movie does get at the class divisions and at the loathsomeness of some of the family that owns Howards End - and maybe at the deeper themes Forster is just hinting at: the break-up of social class, the very beginnings of immigration into London and into England, collision between ruthless capitalism/finance and urban/agrarian tradition. Who owns Howards End, and who should own it, and what does "owning" property entail? - the book, and the movie, make us consider all these questions. Though it's a formulaic film - a grand version of Classic Comics - it's a shorthand way to get at Forster's thinking and expression and at his central mantra: Only connect.