I have long been a fan of Merchant/Ivory productions, perhaps the best known being 'A Room with a View' and 'Howards End'. However, there is a Merchant/Ivory production made in the same time and with the same production and acting qualities that often gets overlooked, and in so being, it is in keeping with its source.
The production team of Merchant/Ivory have worked through the writings of E.M. Forster's novels with flair, style, and grand film-making, very much in keeping with the grand style of Forster's writing. However, the novel 'Maurice' was not published in Forster's lifetime. He believed, even to his death in 1970, that is was a novel ahead of its time. Yet Forster completed it in 1914.
Alas, it was due to the English (and more general) tendency to discount gay characters as being appropriate subjects for literature, particularly when they are presented in as sympathetic, almost romantic characters. In Forster's own handwriting, a note on the manuscript found after his death read, 'Publishable, but worth it?'
This is a basic tale of sexual awakening in post-Victorian England, showing the relationship and the contrast between Maurice Hall and Clive Durham. Both are undergraduates together, and through the course of very English educational encounters, discover in each other 'the love that dared not speak its name', a situation reinforced by all worldly standards.
I heard it once remarked that one thing that makes so many people rankle at discussions of homosexuality is that many people rankle at frank discussions of ANY sexuality. This dictum would certainly be true of the turn-of-the-century British. In one scene, even the professor teaching Greek glosses over references in the translation that are unappetising to him. 'Omit the reference to the unspeakable vice of the Greeks,' the professor says nondescriptly, as the student struggles to translate a section of Zeus and Ganymede's relationship aloud.
In the end, we see the relationship between Maurice and Clive run full course, and see the classic options: Clive runs in a panic (rather literally) into marriage and a respectable life with a wife who seems to think she is a keen judge of human nature, but really hasn't a clue on this one; Maurice opts for love true to his nature albeit against society, even against his social class, but at what cost? Alas, we don't know. The manuscript was unfinished, and the film likewise comes to no firm conclusion. We can hope for a happy ending for all, but wonder what kind of satisfaction any one of the characters may have.
The film and novel are great representations of Edwardian London and country life, as well as university life at the time. The minor sociological issues that arise; the class system is illustrated in wonderful characters -- from the Durham household, a country-gentry, but essentially untitled family, to the Halls, a suburban middle class, to Scudder (Rupert Graves) and the servants at the Durham estate, some of whom are as scathing toward a middle-class pretender like Hall as any upper-class person would be.
The film, like most Merchant/Ivory productions, is an almost perfect period piece -- settings, costumes, mannerism, it is almost as if camera and crew were magically transported back in time to get the proper setting.
Maurice Hall is played by James Wilby, who turns up in other Merchant/Ivory productions such as 'Howards End', but who has thus far failed to make much of an American presence. Wilby was the second choice; Julian Sands ('A Room with a View') was originally slated to do the role, but declined at the last minute. Clive Durham is played, on the other hand, by Hugh Grant, who looks very much different and younger from the Hugh Grant who went up a hill and came down a mountain to attend four weddings and a funeral only to get stopped by the police for solicitation in Hollywood... Rupert Graves as Scudder is a brash and wonderful in the role.
Superb minor supporting performances by Simon Callow and Denholm Elliot, also Merchant/Ivory regulars, help round out the cast. Watch also for the brief glimpse of Helena Bonham Carter, watching the cricket match at the Durham house (she only appears for a few seconds). Perhaps the best cameo is that by Ben Kingsley as the Edwardian version of a reparative therapist, trying to hypnotise homosexuality out of Maurice, suggesting that he swagger more and walk around with a gun to increase his feelings of masculinity; this doctor utters my favourite line in the film, in response to Maurice's inquiry about his situation: 'The English have always been disinclined to accept human nature.'
He then suggests that Maurice move to France or Italy, where such as he are in less jeopardy.
A very interesting film all around, a bit slow moving at times, but in all a great piece of film-making from great film-makers.
Oh, yes, it is pronounced 'Morris' (like the cat in American catfood commercials).
----------------- Cast -----------------
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 Ben Kingsley.... Lasker-Jones Kitty Aldridge.... Kitty Hall Helena Michell.... Ada Hall
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Soundtrack
Good
How does it compare to others by the same director?
Outstanding
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