i must have seen a different film!!

Excellent but underrated film

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

At Cambridge, two scholars become dear friends, and then one day in a gamble, one tells the other that he loves him. The man proclaiming his passion is Clive, an member of the aristocracy who can expect a life of affluence, advantage and maybe public office. The man he feels affection for is Maurice, also well bred, who may go into stocks. In the beginning, Maurice is stunned and revolted by what his friend says, but later that night he climbs through the window to give him a sudden, hot-blooded kiss and murmurs "I love you." This film from James Ivory and Ismail Merchant, themselves both lovers and collaborators, is about the abyss between romantic idealism and urgent animal passion. Maurice, which was finished in 1914, was Forster's effort to confront in fiction his own homosexuality, and the novel was concealed until after his death. The story is set before WWI, when homosexuality was legally forbidden in Britain and being found out meant discredit and shame.Between Clive and Maurice, their views on love are contradictory. Clive is not that keen on the physical consummation of love. He feels it will "lower" them. His thinking is more spiritual and unrealistic. Maurice, once he has been familiarized with the concept of love between men, becomes a fervent romantic, and soon, Clive, the pursuer, becomes the pursued. Clive worries about publicity and scandal. He views homosexuality as something to be fought and conquered, and he ends it with Maurice to wed, take on his family duties and go into politics. Maurice is devastated, and there are bittersweet scenes in which he seeks out support from a hypnotist and the family doctor. Then he has a sexual episode of surprised fervor with Scudder, the coarse gamekeeper on Clive's land.Merchant and Ivory convey this story in a film so perfectly understated and so astutely acted that it almost merits seeing purely to look upon the production. Scene after scene is flawlessly constructed: a sleepy afternoon drifting on the river behind the Cambridge campus, a haphazard cricket game between masters and servants, the everyday custom of college life, outings to country estates and town homes, the details of the rooms. Ben Kingsley, Simon Callow, Billie Whitelaw and Denholm Elliott are all compelling. While some find Wilby imprecise in the title role, I feel he makes proper choices, playing a guy whose most heartfelt thoughts were constantly elsewhere.The question at the heart of the movie is with the chasm between Maurice's decisions. His first love is a person with whom he has much in common. They share wits as well as flesh. The gamekeeper is bluntly depicted as a coarse blue-collar kid, good-looking but simple. In the unbending class boundaries of 1914 England, the two men have little in common at all. The true reason their relationship is bold is not owing to sexuality but to status.Will their love triumph over all? Maybe. Brute sexuality is a vital part of everybody, but particularly after that original passion has dampened down, it's not the most essential part. There comes a time when people need to basically relate to each other. Will that time ever come between Maurice and Scudder? If their choice to live together was a worthy and spirited thing, it would appear to contend that the most significant thing about them was their being gay. But because the story is about the internal strife of two young men confronting their homosexuality throughout times when it was criminal, the choices both Maurice and Clive make are based on survival, not ideal fulfillment. One may be happier than the other, but they'll always be running and hiding from how much they love each other.

I must be in the greater minority, but I disliked this movie overall. I honestly liked it up until about halfway, despite abrupt pacing. However, after Durham's decision to turn away from his sexuality --- and furthermore, his horrific enjoyment of his new life --- I just couldn't agree anymore. Everything felt unsettling and unnatural, and nothing seemed to make sense. There seemed to be so much left out that in the book ( which I haven't read so I'm assuming ) must have been expanded more fully. I feel pacing is a huge flaw in this movie, leaving out important detail and more importantly, LEAD-UP while extending seemingly unnecessary scenes and detours. I recommend reading the book instead, as I later found that the plot line was also changed in the screening. Hopefully these major issues were not present in the literary original.

James Ivory's Maurice (1987) is an example of subtle British stories which always tend to focus on idiotic, buffoonish aristocrats who lead spoiled, idle lives and are a complete bore. In the case of this film, it deals with the forbidden relation between men, one of whom is an upper class snob. That's not at all offensive, but the way the film crams it's monotonous and unnecessary message into our sympathetic eyes, it becomes tedious and rather quickly. There's no enduring his plight because he is so arrogant, and set in his ways of rigid family conformity and he's about as human as a pile of Welsh corn husks.Maurice Hall (James Wilby) is the said character, who is not that bright but along with other British spoiled thugs, is attending Oxford, or some other chum school. He hangs out with a few other mugs, who guzzle beer, sing school songs and slap each other on the arse when in the shower. Eventually, he meets a new bore, Clive Durham (Hugh Grant) and his interest is ignited. They hang out, clasping each other and visiting quiet secluded lakes.All seems fine until there is a change in Clive Durham's behavior. Maurice Hall is crushed over some time by his friend's denial of their true "love". It's obvious Clive Durham wants power and will marry a woman for fear of losing his land, titles, nobility, etc. so the story takes another turn, much in the way a soap opera would appear.We pass through Maurice Hall's life, which is far from any ordinary working man's dilemma, as he travels, eats well and is afforded the luxury of the upper classes but he longs for more. It's exasperating as one would wish he would visit India and die of the plague or tuberculosis.The film then strays further into the rubbish pit by placating Maurice Hall with an unbelievable love interest portrayed by an effeminate, no good, deceitful gardener, who I might add, looks quite clean and unburnt by the sun. Any intelligent viewer will probably either shudder or cringe at the simplistic derailment of the plot but it was obvious that James Ivory was tugging our emotional strings all along, following the clichéd portrayal of social classes and making the love interest look like an underwear model.There's no clear protest message, except to follow your "organ down below" and you'll be happy. If you expect any critique of the hostile social climate, look elsewhere, this is muddy melodrama at its most dense form.See this film only if you want to believe in chimerical inspired fictional stories that are concocted and utterly delusional and preposterous.

This movies beautifully illustrates the love between 2 men and their struggle against selfacceptness, hatress and lack of freedom in a society that doesn't allow them to live, and to be free beings and be as they are. In a society, that would rather see men fight and kill each other, than to see them embraceing. Its about the misery, fear and mistrust it causes for all when you are forced to live a life that isn't right for you.Few movies understand how to bring the message and give a impression like its really happening. This one does. It succeeds in showing what love between 2 men can be.The scenery of the movie is like taking a glimpse into the past around 1910 in England and makes you feel right there.