Watch “Howards End”—Then Read It

This weekend, a new restoration of “Howards End,” the 1992 Merchant Ivory adaptation of E. M. Forster’s 1910 novel, starring Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter, Anthony Hopkins, and Vanessa Redgrave, began screening at Film Forum and the Paris Theatre; it will be shown in other cities around the country in the coming weeks. Go see it. The new 4K print is gorgeous, the performances splendid. The actors seem to have been captured at a moment of particular glory. Forster’s story, about class and temperament in Edwardian England, centers on a beloved family house, Howards End, and its role in the fates of the intellectual, affectionate Schlegel sisters, Margaret (Thompson) and Helen (Bonham Carter); the Wilcoxes, a tough-minded industrialist (Hopkins) and his kind, sentimental wife (Redgrave); and the clerk Leonard Bast (Samuel West), who strives to improve himself, and his companion, Jacky (Nicola Duffett), who does not. In this strange and disturbing political season, a reconsideration of the Wilcoxes, the Schlegels, and the Basts—whose stories stir in us thoughts about pragmatism, good intentions, character, industry, poverty, and respect—somehow feels useful.