Howards End is generally considered the high point of the decades-long collaboration between American-born director James Ivory and Indian-born producer Ismail Merchant, who together produced 27 films that spanned multiple genres and covered much of the globe. When one hears the name "Merchant Ivory," one's thoughts usually turn to images of stately, elegant, literary, arty, and, most importantly, historical films, usually of a decidedly British nature. In that sense, Howards End is very much their pinnacle, if only because all of those terms are aptly applied, but always in the best sense. "Stately" can all too often become stuffy; "elegant" can become dull; "literary" can become inert; and "arty" can become pretentious. Howards End is all of the former and none of the latter.

Based on the celebrated 1910 novel by E.M. Forster (whose novels had already provided the source material for Merchant Ivory's recent films, 1985's A Room With a View and 1987's Maurice), Howards End is an emotionally stirring, but thematically incisive drama about the various interconnections among three families in Edwardian England: the wealthy and powerful Wilcoxes, whose patriarch Henry (Anthony Hopkins) made his fortune as the head of the Imperial and West African Rubber Company (the very name evokes the powers and plunders of colonialism); the Schlegels, three siblings led by the eldest sister Margaret (Emma Thompson), a chatty and thoroughly modern woman who appreciates culture and refinement, but without becoming weighed down by it; and finally the Basts, a young couple struggling with severe economic difficulties.

Each family represents a different stratum of the rigid social hierarchy of the day, and for Forster their interactions illustrated how the ideal of different classes mixing was fraught with various dangers. The film is replete with social, political, and economic conflicts, but because they take place within the realm of "polite society," they rarely break the surface, but rather churn just beneath it. Some of the conflicts are minor, representing various generational differences, such as Ruth Wilcox (Vanessa Redgrave), Henry's dying wife whose rekindled friendship with Margaret sets much of the plot in motion, disagreeing with her friend about women's suffrage. Other conflicts have vast consequences, such as the effect on Leonard Bast (Samuel West) when, following Henry's off-handed advice, he quits his low-paying job as a clerk thinking that his employer is about to go under and finds himself destitute, as opposed to just poor, as a result. The various characters' personality traits are also destined to cause various tensions, from the impulsive and passionate tendencies of Margaret's younger sister Helen (Helena Bonham Carter), who takes the Basts under her wing, to Henry's cold and distant nature, which makes his eventual marriage to Margaret seem so strange, even as it promises to redeem him.

Much of the story takes place at the titular country cottage, which was passed down to Ruth Wilcox through her family and therefore represents a place that is not defined by Henry's capitalistic enterprise. A place of simple beauty and respite, it is both a privileged space that only the upper class could afford to maintain (at one point in the film, Margaret remarks on how many homes the Wilcoxes have) and an idealized escape from the class-bound hierarchies so evident in London. It is not surprising, then, that control of Howards End becomes a crucial aspect of the film's thematic terrain, as if the characters innately recognize its symbolic value and therefore feel the need to define it for themselves.

The Oscar-winning screenplay for Howards End was written by Merchant Ivory's longtime collaborator Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who scripted more than 20 of their films between 1963 and 2009. Her adaptation impressively maintains the issues of the day while keeping them from becoming frozen in time; the story is fundamentally about the social upheavals of England at the turn of the 20th century, but it enthralls today because its characters are so resolutely and recognizably human, rather than literary cut-outs. This is largely due to the outstanding performances by the distinguished cast. Emma Thompson, who won an Oscar for her role, brings a sense of warmth and charm to Margaret, the film's most crucial character, who is best able to bridge the various divides because she respects and represents both emotion and intellect, which gives her a strong contrast with Helena Bonham Carter's Helen, who is all passion. Anthony Hopkins, who had just won an Oscar the year before for his chilling performance as Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs (1991), is particularly effective in portraying Henry's coolness and distance, which makes it all the more affecting late in the film when his character finally breaks and allows others to see the struggling, flawed human inside his flinty armor. It is a role that could have all too easy become rote, but like the rest of the film, it is imbued a deep sense of experience that brings it powerfully to life.

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