MovieChat Forums > Howards End (1993) Discussion > IS THIS CONFUSING, OR WHAT?!

IS THIS CONFUSING, OR WHAT?!

posted 19 years ago by eye-sea
2 replies | jump to latest

Howard's End (1992) & The Remains of the Day (1993).

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE, because I was fooled 1 hour 20 minutes into the UK screening of Howard's End which I believed to be The Remains of the Day (1993).

Confused? Let me explain. Yonks ago, I watched this period drama set in Victorian England about a butler (Anthony Hopkins) and this woman (Emma Thompson); I found it as compelling and moving as Brief Encounter (1946).

For even though they had desires for one another, neither Hopkins nor Thompson made a move, neither kissing or anything. But there was a sexual tension, a desire so powerful between them, you could cut it with a knife.

In the end, both separate, and on their parting neither of them have the guts or the will to say what they really feel for one another.

Now that film was called The Remains of the Day (1993).

Go back 12 months to 1992, and we find Hopkins and Thompson playing VERY SIMILAR ROLES in Howard's End, about...well, re: the above plotline for The Remains of the Day...more or less exactly the same setting, characters...but a different story.

Why on earth Hopkins and Thompson play opposite each other, in virtually the same characters in two films, only 12 months apart, staggers me...

I was so looking forward to watching the movie in which love does not develop, but I got my Howards End mixed up with my Remains of the Day...

An easy mistake to make.

I mean even the film posters are virtually the same!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104454/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107943/

[–] 19 years ago

[deleted]

[–] eye-sea 19 years ago

IN RESPONSE TO: aoc36 1 hour ago (Tue Aug 22 2006 12:26:17)

"I absolutely loved Howard's End. Their is a vast difference in the two love affairs - social status, class. I suppose that's what drew them to the film and perhaps what drove Forster to explore love at different levels.

I am so grateful, they did both films."

EYE SEA'S REPLY:

I understand there is a vast difference, but also a very strong simalirity, in that the setting and close bond is still there. They're also both period dramas.

I prefer the movie in which love is so sadly suppressed. For me, it is the stronger movie...