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Maurice

The movie Maurice was based on the book Maurice.

Which one did you like better, the movie or the book?  There are 4 votes for the book, and 6 votes for the movie.

Movie details for Maurice

The movie was released in 1987 and directed by James Ivory, who also directed Quartet (1981), Heat and Dust (1982), The Bostonians (1984), Room With a View (1986), Slaves of New York (1989), Howard's End (1992), A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries (1998), The Golden Bowl (2000) and Divorce, Le (2003). More information on the movie is available on Amazon.com and also IMDb.

Actors on this movie include James Wilby, Hugh Grant, Rupert Graves, Denholm Elliott, Simon Callow, Billie Whitelaw, Barry Foster, Judy Parfitt, Phoebe Nicholls, Patrick Godfrey, Mark Tandy, Ben Kingsley, Kitty Aldridge, Helena Michell, Catherine Rabett, Peter Eyre, Michael Jenn, Mark Payton, Orlando Wells and Maria Britneva.

 

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The second of the three Merchant/Ivory films adapting E.M. Forster novels (between A Room with a View and Howard's End), Maurice deals with a theme few period pieces dare mention--a young man's struggle with his homosexuality. It's not just a gay coming-... Read More
The second of the three Merchant/Ivory films adapting E.M. Forster novels (between A Room with a View and Howard's End), Maurice deals with a theme few period pieces dare mention--a young man's struggle with his homosexuality. It's not just a gay coming-of-age story, however. The hero wrestles with British class society as much as his personal and sexual identity.

The film opens on a stormy, windswept beach, as an older man awkwardly instructs young, fatherless Maurice Hall (James Wilby) in the "sacred mysteries" of sex. The same turbulent, wordless struggle with passion lasts throughout this slowly evolving, beautifully filmed story. Novelist E.M. Forster's brainy, British melodrama hinges on choice and compulsion, as the pensive hero falls for two completely different men. First comes frail, suppressed Clive (Hugh Grant), who wants nothing more than classical Platonic harmony... and a straight lifestyle. (Grant's performance is so convincing, one wonders how he ever became a heterosexual sex symbol.) After Clive's wedding, Maurice turns to hypnosis to cure his unspeakable longings. Unfortunately, his "cure" is interrupted by Clive's lustful, brooding, barely literate gamekeeper Scudder (Rupert Graves), a worker more at home gutting rabbits than discussing the classics. Maurice's love for a "social inferior" forces him to confront his illicit desire and his ingrained class snobbery. --Grant Balfour

Book details for Maurice

Maurice was written by E. M. Forster. The book was published in 1971 by Book-of-the-Month Club. More information on the book is available on Amazon.com.

E. M. Forster also wrote Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), Howard's End (1921), A Room With a View (1923) and A Passage to India (1924).

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