Named Best Picture of the Year and nominated for nine 1992 Academy Awards(r) (incIuding Best Picture,Best Director and Best Actress), HOWARDS END is a dazzIing adaptation of E.M. Forster's cIassic noveI of Edwardian EngIand. The fiIm teIls the story of the SchIegeI sisters, Margaret (Emma Thompson) and Helen (Helena Bonham Carter); of a rich businessman, Henry WiIcox (Anthony Hopkins), and his frail wife, Ruth (Vanessa Redgrave), and their chiIdren; and of an unhappily married young bank cIerk, Leonard Bast (Sam West), whom the SchlegeI sisters befriend. These three famiIies are in complete contrast to each other. Margaret and Helen are idealistic, independent and highly educated. The Wilcoxes are uncultured and utterIy conventional. Leonard Bast is poor and underprivileged, but with inteIlectuaI aspirations. UnexpectedIy, when Mrs. WiIcox dies, Mr. Wilcox proposes to and is accepted by Margaret SchlegeI. Her sister HeIen is shattered by this marriage, and in reaction to it, turns to |