Maurice (1987)

 

Country: Great Britain
Studio: Home Vision
Cast: James Wilby, Hugh Grant, Rupert Graves, Ben Kingsley, Billie Whitelaw, Denholm Elliott, Simon Callow, Helena Bonham Carter
Director: James Ivory
Year: 1987
Runtime: 140 min
Genre: Drama / Romance
Synopsis
Two male English school chums find themselves falling in love at Cambridge. To regain his place in society, Clive gives up his forbidden love, Maurice (pronounced "Morris") and marries. While staying with Clive and his shallow wife, Anne, Maurice finally discovers romance in the arms of Alec, the gamekeeper.

REVIEW
Now considered a gay novel, Maurice, E.M. Forster's self-suppressed 1914 love story, was not published until after his death in 1970. With the same reverence, respect and regal authority that they brought to his A Room with a View, Merchant Ivory Productions has created an exquisite and sexually bold adaptation of the author's semiautobiographical novel.
Set in pre-WWI England, the film examines the social and sexual repression of the era in this story of the emotional conflict facing a college student coming to terms with his homosexuality.

James Wilby is perfectly cast in the title role, Hugh Grant gives a precise performance as his frustratingly platonic lover who transforms from free-spirit to social prig, and Rupert Graves is splendid as Alec, the handsome gamekeeper who awakens Maurice's dormant feelings. When Alec climbs in Maurice's bedroom window and into his bed, the hair on this writer's neck goes up, regardless of how many times he has seen this film. An inspiring tale of gay love that transcends and social barriers.

File size: 843.5 MB