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My experience with Merchant/Ivory Productions is limited to say the least as Howards End now marks the second film of theirs I have seen, with A Room With a View being the other. While elegantly made, A Room With a View didn't move me that much, but I can say Howards End did a lot to squelch my fears it too would bore me more than engage me. Criterion brings Howards End to Blu-ray following their previous two-disc DVD release back in 2005, and while the only new feature is a video appreciation of the late producer Ismail Merchant by director James Ivory, this is a film ripe for high definition.

Based on the novel by E.M. Forster, Howards End takes a look at class divisions in Edwardian England and the inheritance of England by the working/lower class. The film centers on the well-to-do Wilcox family and the relationship...

To American audiences, the late producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory are best known for their trio of E.M. Forster adaptations - which is telling for careers spanning 40 years and nearly 30 films together (almost all with writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala), making their Forster output roughly ten percent of their body of work. But then again, the names “Merchant and Ivory” are a sort of cinematic shorthand used to denote British films about boring people. My review of Howard’s End after the jump.

That’s not fair, it’s shorthand for particular literary works set at the turn of the century that depict the British class system in all of its repressive reputation, making it impossible for anyone to express their true feelings. To be fair, M&I’s Forster adaptations have been because of their most successful entries, with both A Room with a View and Howard’s...