Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
James Wilby | ... | Maurice Hall | |
Hugh Grant | ... | Clive Durham | |
Rupert Graves | ... | Alec Scudder | |
Denholm Elliott | ... | Doctor Barry | |
Simon Callow | ... | Mr. Ducie | |
Billie Whitelaw | ... | Mrs. Hall | |
Barry Foster | ... | Dean Cornwallis | |
Judy Parfitt | ... | Mrs. Durham | |
Phoebe Nicholls | ... | Anne Durham | |
Patrick Godfrey | ... | Simcox | |
Mark Tandy | ... | Risley | |
Ben Kingsley | ... | Lasker-Jones | |
Kitty Aldridge | ... | Kitty Hall | |
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Helena Michell | ... | Ada Hall |
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Catherine Rabett | ... | Pippa Durham |
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. Written from personal pain, it's E.M. Forster's story of coming to terms with sexuality in the Edwardian age. Written by Susan Southall <stobchatay@aol.com>
A gay classic that is situated at the beginning of the twentieth century. 'Maurice' is the story of Maurice Hall, a student at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. There he meets Clive Durham. Both men develop a strong friendship, which to a certain level, becomes physical. Clive is gay, but Maurice doesn't want to know anything about it. Until he admits he also has feelings for persons of the same sex, even though in intellectual circles homosexuality is 'the love that dare not speak its name'.
Maurice doesn't know how to behave. Of course he wants to be himself, but society doesn't accept gay people. When he more or less decides to live as a gay man bosom friend Clive changes his mind, frightened by a lawsuit against a gay man. According to Clive the physical friendship between Maurice and Clive must end and from that moment on he wants to experience real love: the love of a woman. The relation between Maurice and Clive gets tense.
Even Maurice tries to get his sexual preference changed by visiting a hypnotist, but the treatment fails. That becomes very clear when Maurice sleeps with Scudder, Clive's under gamekeeper. A passionate love develops between Scudder and Maurice, which makes Clive realize what kind of appearance he has to keep up as a 'converted' gay man.
'Maurice' is based on the novel of the same name written by E.M. Forster. The film is beautiful and made with a feeling for historical notion. The actors playing the leading roles are straight in real life but act the gay roles in a beautiful way. Actually everything in the film is right: image, usage of language, costumes and music.