Gorgeous and moving
Added 11/7/2009
I first read this book in the summer of 2003 and then had my boyfriend buy me the DVD for Valentine's Day 2004. I'm not sure how many times I've watched this movie since, but it's at least fifteen if not twenty. If, for the rest of my life, I were only allowed to watch five movies, this would be one of them. I never get bored with this movie because there are so many little details to notice and I find a new one almost every time. Every single element is well-done, from the acting to the sets to the costumes to the absolutely beautiful score.
I'm also impressed with the casting. James Wilby has the perfect blandly attractive look for Maurice, Forster's "ordinary" protagonist, but the pensieve emotion he puts into the character makes him anything but bland. Hugh Grant, in one of his early roles, displays the same ease in playing a sensitive snob that he has in some of his later films, but with none of the self-consciousness and manufactured charm that have marred much of his work over the last fifteen years or so. After a while I forgot it even was Hugh Grant. As for Rupert Graves, he inhabits his character with all the charm, roughness, and lack of inhibition required for Alec Scudder, the gamekeeper who proves to be Maurice's salvation. In the smaller roles, credit is due to Phoebe Nicholls, who plays Anne, Clive's wife, and Mark Tandy as Risley, Maurice and Clive's entertainingly pretentious friend from Cambridge.
"Maurice" is a sweepingly romantic film about a man altered by love, propelled by his overwhelming passion from a state of unthinking and uninspired existence to depths of emotion that cause him to question everything he thought he knew about his place in the world. When we first see Maurice as an adolescent boy, his life appears to be already planned for him; he will finish his current school, begin a new one, grow up to become an Edwardian gentleman, and marry an appropriate young lady. "I think I shan't marry," the young Maurice tells his teacher, Mr Ducie, who laughs it off as one of those ridiculous things children say. And indeed, when we see the barely-adult Maurice at Cambridge, his early thoughts of societal rebellion appear to have gone nowhere; he's an unremarkable undergraduate whose attempts at insight sound more recited than believed. Contrast the dull and inarticulate Maurice having dinner with the Dean to the bold, clear-thinking, defiant man of the film's last few scenes and the contrast is extraordinary.
The DVD extras are entertaining; I particularly enjoyed Rupert Graves's comment that, after the release of the film, he received an abundance of fan mail from Japanese schoolgirls. The extras also offer a number of deleted scenes that will be of particular interest to viewers who have read the novel.
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Hugh Grant as a gay man
Added 9/30/2009
I cannot believe this film. A real love story between two men. Not a sexually explicit film, but a well acted one. Hugh Grant? Anyhow, I enjoyed it and bought it. It's a longish film but well acted and keeps your attention. Probably limited as well. Better buy it.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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Great film
Added 7/1/2009
Much has already been written about the film.
The musical soundtrack (composed by Richard Robbins) is just beautiful.
I particularly remembered the music when I first watched this film. Mysterious, haunting, sad, hopeful and emotional.
"The Moonlit Night", "The Boathouse" and "Clive and Anne" are my favourite pieces.
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Not too long storyMaurice - The Merchant Ivory CollectionMaurice - The Merchant Ivory Collection
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Not just a gay film
Added 2/3/2009
The other reviewers have said about everything there is to be said about this movie. I would just add, don't skip over this because you think it is just for gay people. It's definitely a story everybody (with the possible exception of homophobes) will enjoy.
This movie is just as much about Maurice's growing confidence, as it is about his love life.
We women can't help but enjoy seeing three attractive men in gorgeous period clothing, knowing they are just pretending to be gay. LOL
3 out of 5 people found this helpful.
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Gorgeous and moving
Added 11/7/2009
I first read this book in the summer of 2003 and then had my boyfriend buy me the DVD for Valentine's Day 2004. I'm not sure how many times I've watched this movie since, but it's at least fifteen if not twenty. If, for the rest of my life, I were only allowed to watch five movies, this would be one of them. I never get bored with this movie because there are so many little details to notice and I find a new one almost every time. Every single element is well-done, from the acting to the sets to the costumes to the absolutely beautiful score.
I'm also impressed with the casting. James Wilby has the perfect blandly attractive look for Maurice, Forster's "ordinary" protagonist, but the pensieve emotion he puts into the character makes him anything but bland. Hugh Grant, in one of his early roles, displays the same ease in playing a sensitive snob that he has in some of his later films, but with none of the self-consciousness and manufactured charm that have marred much of his work over the last fifteen years or so. After a while I forgot it even was Hugh Grant. As for Rupert Graves, he inhabits his character with all the charm, roughness, and lack of inhibition required for Alec Scudder, the gamekeeper who proves to be Maurice's salvation. In the smaller roles, credit is due to Phoebe Nicholls, who plays Anne, Clive's wife, and Mark Tandy as Risley, Maurice and Clive's entertainingly pretentious friend from Cambridge.
"Maurice" is a sweepingly romantic film about a man altered by love, propelled by his overwhelming passion from a state of unthinking and uninspired existence to depths of emotion that cause him to question everything he thought he knew about his place in the world. When we first see Maurice as an adolescent boy, his life appears to be already planned for him; he will finish his current school, begin a new one, grow up to become an Edwardian gentleman, and marry an appropriate young lady. "I think I shan't marry," the young Maurice tells his teacher, Mr Ducie, who laughs it off as one of those ridiculous things children say. And indeed, when we see the barely-adult Maurice at Cambridge, his early thoughts of societal rebellion appear to have gone nowhere; he's an unremarkable undergraduate whose attempts at insight sound more recited than believed. Contrast the dull and inarticulate Maurice having dinner with the Dean to the bold, clear-thinking, defiant man of the film's last few scenes and the contrast is extraordinary.
The DVD extras are entertaining; I particularly enjoyed Rupert Graves's comment that, after the release of the film, he received an abundance of fan mail from Japanese schoolgirls. The extras also offer a number of deleted scenes that will be of particular interest to viewers who have read the novel.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
Hugh Grant as a gay man
Added 9/30/2009
I cannot believe this film. A real love story between two men. Not a sexually explicit film, but a well acted one. Hugh Grant? Anyhow, I enjoyed it and bought it. It's a longish film but well acted and keeps your attention. Probably limited as well. Better buy it.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
Great film
Added 7/1/2009
Much has already been written about the film.
The musical soundtrack (composed by Richard Robbins) is just beautiful.
I particularly remembered the music when I first watched this film. Mysterious, haunting, sad, hopeful and emotional.
"The Moonlit Night", "The Boathouse" and "Clive and Anne" are my favourite pieces.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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