Starz's take on Howards End is surprisingly good

The Boston Globe

Manchester by the Sea director Kenneth Lonergan's take on the E.M. Forster novel, starring Hayley Atwell and Matthew MacFadyen does indeed work as a limited TV series. "I was skeptical about Starz’s new four-part adaptation of Howards End, since Merchant-Ivory seemed to have already delivered the best possible film version of E.M. Forster’s 1910 classic back in 1992," says Matthew Gilbert. "It won a ton of awards, including an Oscar for Emma Thompson, and it successfully got at the humor, wisdom, and mystery that underpin Forster’s storytelling. It re-created the wonderful muddles — moral and emotional — that Forster treasured deeply as a writer. But it turns out that there are now two extraordinary adaptations of Howards End in the world, each remarkable and distinct. The Starz production, which premieres Sunday at 8 p.m., makes excellent use of the extra time that TV affords to add extra layers of detail — to the characterizations, to the relationships, to the dialogue, and to the larger social themes, which remain so relevant."

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