Howards End

Often considered E.M. Forster’s masterpiece, Howards End is the story of two independent and unconventional sisters and the men in their lives seeking love and meaning as they navigate an ever-changing world. Academy Award winning screenwriter Kenneth Lonergan brings a fresh take to this adaptation directed by BAFTA winner Hettie Macdonald. Margaret Schlegel (Hayley Atwell) is an intelligent, idealistic young woman who is courted by the older Henry Wilcox (Matthew Macfadyen), a self-made conservative businessman, after his wife Ruth Wilcox (Julia Ormond) dies unexpectedly and he becomes owner of Howards End. Meanwhile Margaret’s passionate and capricious younger sister Helen Schlegel (Philippa Coulthard) takes up the cause of Leonard Bast (Joseph Quinn) a young bank clerk who falls on hard times at work and at home with his partner Jacky (Rosalind Eleazar). In the absence of their late parents, the sisters’ loving but interfering Aunt Juley (Tracey Ullman) tries to keep the young ladies and their brother Tibby (Alex Lawther) on the straight and narrow.