Maurice (1987)

Love the novel, love the movie.

Please don't say maw-REES.

Say Morris.

Why is it pronounced different?

It isn't. "Morris" is the proper way to pronounce "Maurice." But language changes over time and I think many people - more nowadays - use a literal translation of the letters in the name.

MA-Ric is the French way. Morris is the English way, correct?

MoREES is the French way. Morris is the English way. I'm half-French and suffer the indignity of having Maurice as one of my middle names.

Love it

Say however the fuck you want.

Great hair styles.

Floppy hair is always in style.

I haven't seen the film in at least 10 years, but I recall thinking it was a good, not great M&I film. I remember feeling like the editing felt 'off' -- often quite disjointed. It felt second-tier to films like Remains of the Day, Howard's End and Room With a View. But, still, hats off to Hugh and Co for embracing the subject matter. I know this was before Hugh was a massive international movie star, but, still, it reflects well on him.

MINOR SPOILER AHEAD....

The very end of the film in which Hugh and his wife are in their bedroom and he's looking out onto the garden and seeing a vision of Maurice appear in his mind's eye as Richard Robbins' beautiful, yearning 'Clive & Ann' music is playing was a beautiful ending. You can see it from about 5:15 onward here...

Say it in BROKEN ENGLISH!

2018: James Wilby and Hugh Grant reminisce about Maurice and speak quite fondly and proudly of the experience.

I cry at this movie.

More seriously...'Maurice' is arguably the most underrated of the Ivory/Merchant productions.

And none of the gay characters dies at the end. There is jail and a suicide, though.

And a beautiful scene at the end when Maurice has found love, and Clive closes the bedroom shutter, closing off his life with Maurice and what is probably his true nature, while his unconsidered wife looks on listlessly.

Go...

When it was first released went to see it with my then high school " girlfriend" . When the boat house scene came up I lost it. Had to pretend to be choking on popcorn and fled to the lobby. It was a favorite film of my late partner's and he would always hand me the tissues when I started to sob. "We shan't never be parted!" and weren't for 24 years.

Still I think Samuel West as Leonard Bast in Howard's End is heartbreaking while all the characters in Maurice remain a bit clipped.

It's pronounced Maury.

R18

You can only compare Scudder with Leonard Best. The rest of the characters in 'Maurice' were a different class, and that could account for what you sense as clipped.

We did this movie last year.

Before I get an "Oh, dear!", the response above should read "none...die" not "none...dies."

Sorry.

I fell in love with Rupert Graves watching this film.

Yeah, it's "Morris".

A great film.

Very great.

OP, they're undergraduates at Cambridge, not pupils at prep school (which in the UK, ends at around age 11).

[quote] while all the characters in Maurice remain a bit clipped.

Wot about Scoo'ers?

He could barely speak the English language without GLOTTAL STOPS on every second word.

Who DIDN'T fall in love with Rupert Graves watching this film?

Much preferred him over Hugh and James and sad that he never really became a leading man of the British cinema. Or even the BBC.

R28, I fell in love with Judy Parfitt in this....

R12

Thank you for posting that beautiful scene. Apologies - I hadn't seen your post before I posted my comment about that same scene.

Great minds and all that.

r30 - quite alright. You did a far better job of describing the scene than I did anyway.

I must watch this again. I haven't watched it for 30 years.

R32 you can purchase the Blu Ray or watch on Kanopy.

Thanks and good to know R33. Someone gave me the DVD for a gift several years ago so I will go dig it out. It still has the plastic wrap on it. Will watch it today.

R34 Please do. Nothing like a glass of wine and a Merchant-Ivory film

I saw this on the A&E network, when it was a highfalutin' culture channel and I was 13.

Oh my God, I thought it was the most romantic thing I would ever see in my life.

When Rupert Graves got out of bed nude, I almost spontaneously ejaculated.

I need to see this again. I saw it when I was young and in the closet—was so afraid to be found out that couldn’t enjoy it

Saw it for the first time when I was 13. Probably not exaggerating to say it changed my life

I fell in love with Rupert Graves already in "A Room with a View" with that amazing hair flopping around. "Maurice" is probably my favorite film of all time - definitely my desert island movie.

Denholm Elliott was bisexual and died of AIDS

I didn't know that R40.

R41 sarcasm or serious?

I saw it when it first came out. I was maybe 19? I finally understood why people thought movies could be romantic. I had shoulder length hair at the time. Immediately got a floppy Maurice haircut, from my first real boyfriend.

R39. Don't forget Rupert's flopping dick in the skinny dipping scene.

As a deeply in-the-closet teenage gayling with conservative parents in the homophobic 80’s, Maurice opened a whole new world to me and gave me hope. I haven’t watched it now for a few decades, but I will be forever grateful to M&I (and EM Forster) for the life changing experience.

DL fav Miss Nicolas Fairford would be fabulous in 'Maurice' He has the perfect foppish look.

The passion between Maurice and Scudder is undeniable… Absolutely gorgeous movie…It’s apart of my collection 👍

R46 Nicolas would have to play a working class lad, which is what he is. Not a fop. He's a poor fake fop. Carry on.

It has been on Tubi for a while now.

I was so in love with Rupert Graves, on my first trip to London in the late 1990s, I went to see him in a West End revival of the David Rabe play Hurly Burly. Playing a skeezy heterosexual, he didn't do it for me at all (no floppy hair!) and the entire production was just awful. I remember seeing Ian McKellan in the audience after the show chatting up his young companion about "whatever will we ever say to dear Rupert?" afterwards.

It will become a classic because it is so ageless. Could have been made yesterday. A beautiful movie that captures a love story perfectly in its time to inform and entertain. Cannot ask much more of a film.

Merchant and Ivory’s films are all very much like this. Great filmmakers.

Hugh Grant was gorgeous back then.

I loved the movie and found it heartbreaking. I even bought it on DVD. However, I find I can rarely rewatch it. I think I've seen it twice since the first time I watched it.

[quote] It has been on Tubi for a while now.

Is it anywhere without 400 commercials?

R53 Kanopy. Get a public library card and you can log in with Kanopy. They have a ton of stuff

If you liked the movie, you should absolutely read the book. It's written so beautifully and so many profound things are expressed that just cannot be translated well into moving pictures. I love the movie, but the book adds another dimension. One of my favourite scenes is when Scudder complains that his boss (the old lady) didn't even remember his name, despite him standing there every day. He is truly invisible to her, reduced to a function.

Hugh Grant looked unbelievably beautiful in this film.

Truculently Pretty Oxford Party Boy

This one captures his weird eyes.

R57 There's another of those Oxford party pictures in his bio where a fellow student is wearing a cute little g-string,

The link at R55 was Spanish, but it costs about 2 USD for Kindle or as an e-book.

WAtch it here and ignore the subtitles.

[quote] It has been on Tubi for a while now.

I loathe the name of this site so much I avoid watching movies on it.

I watched it on Amazon Prime a year or so ago.

I don’t think James Wilby was the first choice for the lead. He was originally cast in a supporting role.

Julian Sands, who had played the male lead in Merchant Ivory's A Room with a View, was originally cast in the title role, but backed out at the last minute.

James Wilby had auditioned for the role of Clive Durham's brother-in-law. When Sands left the project, Ivory considered two unknown actors for the role of Maurice: James Wilby and Julian Wadham. Since he had already cast the dark-haired Hugh Grant as Clive, Ivory decided on the blond James Wilby over the dark-haired Julian Wadham, who was given a role as one of Maurice's stockbroker friends.

Julian Sands was the first choice

^ Sands would have been too sharp and intense.

The character of the vague, fumbling Maurice was more suited to the prettier Wilby.