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List Price: $29.95Amazon.com's Price: $24.99 You Save: $4.96 (17%)Prices subject to change.
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Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 9780780026766
Format: Anamorphic, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
ISBN: 0780026764
Label: Merchant Ivory
Manufacturer: Merchant Ivory
Number Of Items: 2
Publisher: Merchant Ivory
Region Code: 1
Release Date: February 24, 2004
Running Time: 140 minutes
Sales Rank: 18842
Studio: Merchant Ivory
Theatrical Release Date: September 18, 1987
Editorial Review:
Description:
Set against the stifling conformity of pre-World War I English society, E.M. Forster’s Maurice is a story of coming to terms with one’s sexuality and identity in the face of disapproval and misunderstanding. Maurice Hall (James Wilby) and Clive Durham (Hugh Grant) find themselves in love at Cambridge. In a time when homosexuality was punishable by imprisonment, the two must keep their feelings for one another a complete secret, even though Clive refuses to allow their relationship to move beyond the boundaries of 'platonic' love. After a friend is arrested and disgraced for 'the unspeakable crime of the Greeks,' Clive abandons his forbidden love, marries, and enters into the political arena. Maurice, however, struggles with questions of his identity and self-confidence, even seeking the help of a hypnotist to rid himself of his undeniable urges. But while staying with Clive and his shallow wife, Anne, Maurice is seduced by the affectionate and yearning servant Alec Scudder, (Rupert Graves), an event that brings about profound changes in Maurice’s life and outlook. Sparking direction by James Ivory, a distinguished performance from the ensemble cast, and a charged score by Richard Robbins all combine to create a film of undeniable power, one that is both romantic and moving, and a story of love and self-discovery for all audiences.
Amazon.com:
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
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - Great Valentine's Day Flick
Love Triumps in this story of two men in turn-of-the-century England. Despite their great differences - one is of noble birth, the other is from the lowly worker class - they find comfort and confidence in each other and a love that, in the end, wins out against the hurtles and hard choices a victorian-age society puts between them... A MUST BUY!
Rating: - Century Later the Feeling Is Still Strong
Over twenty years after it was made "Maurice" has changed into a classic but did not age at all. This coming-of-age and coming-to-terms story faithfully taken from E. M. Forster's novel was transferred into the screen with such adroitness that with the passage of time it rather increases its appeal.
We are transferred to the Edwardian England some years before the outbreak of the Great War. The main hero Maurice is an average student (it is funny to note that everybody including Maurice considers ... Read More
Rating: - MAURICE. You will wish you had seen it sooner!
Maurice is a very, very good movie. Everything about the film is great; e.g., acting, attire at the turn of the century, weather, facial and physical gestures... It is a bit of a tear jerker; however, it has a nice ending for everyone. Or does it?
I just wish they had used more British actors.
Rating: - A Wonderful Film
Maurice, which is based on E.M. Forster's heartbreaking and beautiful semi-autobiographical novel of the same name is a wonderful Merchant Ivory productions.
James Wilby stars as Maurice, a young man at Cambridge who begins to develop feelings for his friend and fellow student Clive (Hugh Grant). The feeling turns out to be mutual and the friends soon fall in love with one another, but must keep their relationship secret because of the strict Edwardian society which they inhabit.
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Rating: - A beautiful period "art" film for a sophisticated audience
Merchant Ivory's "Maurice" is a must for those who collect period "art" films as well as those interested in gay themes. This beautifully photographed and acted narrative has a positive message unlike "The Talented Mr. Ripley", which I also enjoy but which is very cinema noir. Nothing Merchant Ivory has done is hackneyed. All their films resonate with a cultivated and cultured audience. This film is no exception.
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