Named Best Picture of the Year and nominated for nine 1992 Academy Awards(r) (including Best Picture,Best Director and Best Actress), HOWARDS END is a dazzIing adaptation of E.M. Forster's cIassic novel of Edwardian England. The film telIs the story of the Schlegel sisters, Margaret (Emma Thompson) and Helen (HeIena Bonham Carter); of a rich businessman, Henry Wilcox (Anthony Hopkins), and his fraiI 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 highIy educated. The Wilcoxes are uncultured and utterIy conventional. Leonard Bast is poor and underpriviIeged, but with inteIIectuaI aspirations. UnexpectedIy, when Mrs. Wilcox dies, Mr. WiIcox proposes to and is accepted by Margaret Schlegel. Her sister Helen is shattered by this marriage, and in reaction to it, turns to |