'Howards End' Begins with Class, Connections & Family Dynamics

Any new adaptation of E. M. Forster’s 1910 novel Howards End has a tough act to follow, namely the much-loved 1992 Merchant Ivory film starring such British acting greats as Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, and Vanessa Redgrave. However, the 2017 version produced by the BBC, initially in partnership with Starz, takes up the challenge admirably, so much so that Masterpiece scooped it up for its own in 2020. Although the first episode starts as a farce of missed timings, postal deliveries, and misunderstandings, we soon discover how intriguing, contradictory, and subtle the characters are.

Queen Victoria died as the first decade of the 20th century commenced, and change was in the air. The Bloomsbury Group proposed revolutionary ideas about love and art; women’s suffrage is a significant issue, and Britain still rules the waves in empire and industry. The titular Howards End is a house; much like the titular Downton Abbey, it functions as a character in its own right, awakening deep feelings and yearnings among the various human protagonists. It can also be seen as a microcosm of Britain itself, reflecting modernity’s detrimental advance and the countryside’s urbanization.

Howards End is a story about class, connection, and family dynamics as represented by three very different households: the Schlegels, half-German, cultured, intellectual, forward-thinking people who question everything; the Wilcox family, who represent empire and industry and question very little because they are secure in their own entitlement; and the Basts, at the lower end of the economic scale, with little power or privilege.