Protraph Lack of good storyline.

Sharkflei Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

Edwin The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Delight Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

snowyprecipice This was a bittersweet movie set in Edwardian Britain. It stars James Wilby in the title role as Maurice, who meets a very liberal and refreshing Clive (played by Hugh Grant) in college. Clive falls in love with Maurice and confesses, who first reacts with horror and then later realizes he's felt the same for a while, too. It just never really occurred to him that a man could love another man. They are in a relationship for about 2 years, when Clive gets doubts because he's afraid of the consequences if things get out, so he breaks it off.(Ugh stupid, cowardly Clive!)Maurice, rather lost and heartbroken, doesn't really know how to deal with it, especially after Clive gets himself a wife (a benign, rather sweet girl that Clive is fond of). He even tries conversion therapy, which doesn't work and leaves him feeling more hopeless. But he meets the smouldering gamekeeper Alec Scudder (played by Rupert Graves i.e. Lestrade in BBC's Sherlock), who helps him realize that he isn't wrong to feel that way about men.I cried at the end. Maurice gets a happy ending, but in the last scene, Clive looks out the window, an empty shell of who he once was, watching his memory of young Maurice (in their college days) disappearing forever. It's so sad how societal pressures and his own cowardice to face up to his true nature could force this man into the closet and a loveless marriage.And just to add, James Wilby is a true English beauty; just look at his fair hair!

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU It is difficult to speak of a classic and this film is one. E.M. Forster is also an English writer who has tact and some natural nobility. He makes radiant any subject he touches. And this subject is delicate if not difficult. It was when the book came out and it still was when the film came out. Nowadays it has lost its smell of sulphur and hell and in spite of all the tricksters and mud-throwers around it smells of love and it carries a strong appeal for those who just have a mind.We cannot avoid thinking of Lady Chatterley's Lover but we are no longer dealing with a woman but with a man, with straight love but with gay love and it is necessary to give a general idea of the story for any commentary to make sense. It starts at Cambridge when two young men fall in love, Clive declaring his love to the other and this other, Maurice, being repulsed at first and then apologizing and accepting his attraction. The point is that the one who declared his love first is the aristocrat whereas the other is from a stock exchange family. And that's the latter's first loss. He is cleanly and immediately kicked out of Cambridge because he missed a few classes to spend the afternoon with Clive and refuses to apologize to the Dean.But another of their university mates, Viscount Risley, managed to get in some kind of fix in an East End pub one night when he buys some quick pleasure from a cadet in a back alley. He is "captured" by the police and dragged to court. This Viscount is a Parliamentary Private Secretary and is at the start of a political career. He is abandoned by every one, including Clive, and the judge condemns him lightly as for the prison term but ruins his political career forever with the clear mention that "instead of setting an example to the people", he looked for favours from people who were his "inferiors" and he used his advantageous superiority in education to do so.This reveals the deeply social segregational attitude of England then. The social difference made such a relationship unacceptable to justice with a strong emphasis on this social barrier that the culprit dared cross.That makes Clive change his position entirely. He decides to drop Maurice, apart from a platonic friendship and to marry a girl who is full of love but not too subtle on the real emotions of her husband. This rebuff from Clive sends Maurice to hell and he tries to find a way out with doctors and even a hypnotist who comes up with the fair advice to move to a country like France where homosexuality is accepted. And his conclusion is final: "England has always been disinclined to accept human nature." But in the meantime Maurice falls in love with Clive's gamekeeper, Alec. In fact it seems the gamekeeper smelled the possible emotional opening in Maurice and Maurice did not rebuff him and then Alec moved forward and Maurice let him do so. The love is strong but Maurice is afraid of some blackmail, and yet he goes on as far as possible before Alec leaves England for Argentina. But Maurice will find out the ship leaves without Alec and he will run back to Clive's place and will subodorate that Alec is waiting for him in the boathouse and sure enough here he is.The first element is that E.M. Forster's novel was one essential milestone on the slow and long road that led England to two fundamental mental reforms. The first one has to do with gay love and England was not the first country to move on such a subject after WW2 but in fact they moved rather fast though they still have some way to go. But the second mental reform is far from being complete. It is social segregation. In 1910-1913 when the action takes place that social segregation is absolute: the relation, between the aristocracy and the lower classes were absolutely not acceptable in any way, particularly of course emotionally, sentimentally or sexually. D.H. Lawrence had proved it with his above-quoted novel for women and E.M. Forster proved it with this here novel and film.The arguments emphasized by the judge are absolutely univocal: a member of the nobility could not in any way have any kind of an affair with someone from a lower social station. The fact that at the same time the Anglican church and the society as a whole condemned gay love and gay sex as immoral and un-natural if not anti-natural, does not in anyway alleviate the horror of that social discrimination in people's sentimental, emotional and sexual private lives. And at the same time it is this very fact that this social discrimination is a lot more powerful than the moral condemnation that gives Maurice and Alec a possible choice, a possible chance.Alec could miss his ship because he wanted to stay with Maurice, that was his free choice, and Maurice could run after him blindly because he wanted Alec to stay and be part of his life, and that was also his free choice, and that is in a way possible for them both because Maurice is working at the Stock Exchange, in a brokerage house and he is not in anyway part of the nobility and aristocracy. That's their chance and Alec could become in a way or another some employee of Maurice's and then the rest was discretion and love. And eventually they could move to another country.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

iza8868 First of all, I can't believe this movie was made in 1987!This has more passion, emotion and sensuality in it than most romance movies of the 2000's. This bittersweet but tender love story managed to get my attention all along (I didn't even notice that it's longer than an average movie-140 min.) and marvelously get's it's message across without being too explicit. This highly emotional love story is built around three characters and explores the problem of homosexuality in 19th century England. The main character is Maurice Hall,as the title suggests, who comes to terms with his sexuality, when love develops between him and his college best friend, Clive Durham. After rejection, deception and huge efforts to become what is considered "normal", he finally finds comfort in the arms of the Durham household's gamekeeper. Although all the performances were excellent, it was Alec Scudder's character that I found the more interesting. Rupert Graves did an excellent job portraying this rough yet sensitive country boy, who's sincere love for a high class gentleman seems impossible at first. A bit brash, yet charming, this low class lad falls desperately in love with Mr. Durham's (almost) permanent guest, who initially, despite Scudder's numerous signals, doesn't seem to remark his more than obvious affection. His glances, the clumsy conversations, the overjoyed remark that Scudder makes after Mr. Hall's unexpectedly quick return to the estate, as well as the passionate love letters addressed to Maurice after their first "sharing", show the honesty and depth of Scudder's affection, excluding any chance of blackmailing and desire for profit - as both the viewer and Maurice might have suspected. Compared to Clive Durham, who is unable to face his sexuality and hides behind a hollow marriage, Scudder stands as a vivid character, comfortable with who he is,and who's faithfulness and unconditional love manages to win Maurice's heart.

skyhouse5 Having arrived, belatedly, by some 20 years, on this Ivory/Merchant classic, it strikes me as the perfect bookend for the 2004? "Brokeback Mountain." Both films are as close to "perfection" as humanly possible, and each is true and profound in its own right and style, nuance and subtexts, milieu and specifics. It will be difficult indeed for any future forays into the subject to come close to, much less equal, surpass?, not very likely, this pair of investigations of what some sociologists/psychologists in the past dubbed a "paraphilia." Yes, both films have elevated both subject and contemplation into the realm of unblinking observation, authentic perception, AND "art" as well. "Maurice" is a worthy addition to the Merchant/Ivory canon. Frank Eng