While I liked the first half of Maurice, I absolutely sat up with the second portion. If you can make it through the pompous, arrogant and snotty people of the first hour, you're in for a great all-around coming out story.Here's another movie I watched consistently when I was in my young, gay, formable years. Maybe once every 2-3 months. It's slow, yes. It's a period piece film, sure. And it's hard to get through at times…but if you can stick through to the end – hell, the second half, it's well worth it.Maybe because, when I was younger, I fell in love with Rupert Graves, due to this movie. Now, I liked his character in this movie, Alec Scudder, but physically…Again, this was in my impressionable years when I first started watching this. I even wanted to name my child – if I ever had one: Alec. Love(d) that name.I digress, as I normally do. The movie is set in England, the early 1910s. It's based on an E.M. Forster (of A Room with a View fame) book that was set to be released only after Forster was deceased. (I read this book, by the way and loved it.) Poor Morris (James Wilby and that's how it was pronounced back then;) in his own formable years in "college," he meets Hugh Grant's Clive Durham and they build a solid love affair in a time when someone caught doing homosexual acts could be imprisoned. Mercifully, England, unlike their child, the great U.S. of A., has turned it around since then. In fact, recently, they allow same-sex marriages. Kudos to them for being so advanced!Meanwhile, when another colleague of theirs is, in fact, imprisoned, Clive retreats and wrongfully marries a woman and ditches Maurice. He's distraught, definitely confused and seeks out "change" when he meets the man (of my own dreams following) who will prove to him: NOTHING IS WRONG.This movie helped me through a lot back then. Sure, at the time I first discovered it, it was set in a time eight decades prior, and in another country, but it was absolutely relevant to me and my own story. For, I didn't come out until gays finally started to earn the slightest of respect, in the early 1990s. Me, like Maurice, both didn't understand what was happening to us. No one told me what to expect, if there were others out there like me or if I was right or wrong.Remember: this was all pre-internet.This movie was well-made, had a great score and watching it from beginning to end, it's very touching and reminds me, with every viewing, of my youth. I'm glad I saw it back then, and look forward to seeing it again.

I must be in the greater minority, but I disliked this movie overall. I honestly liked it up until about halfway, despite abrupt pacing. However, after Durham's decision to turn away from his sexuality --- and furthermore, his horrific enjoyment of his new life --- I just couldn't agree anymore. Everything felt unsettling and unnatural, and nothing seemed to make sense. There seemed to be so much left out that in the book ( which I haven't read so I'm assuming ) must have been expanded more fully. I feel pacing is a huge flaw in this movie, leaving out important detail and more importantly, LEAD-UP while extending seemingly unnecessary scenes and detours. I recommend reading the book instead, as I later found that the plot line was also changed in the screening. Hopefully these major issues were not present in the literary original.

We all make mistakes, of course. But I felt it was my «duty» to point out at least two slight mistakes in Mr. Christopher Sullivan's (from New York City, USA) comment. I only do this so that readers won't be mislead. I mean the best to all, including Mr. Sullivan's overall accurate and well-written review ! He states (and I quote -- while making my own remarks in BOLD LETTERS): ***************************** «Maurice" (prononced "Morris") -- PRONOUNCED -- is the film adaption of the book by E.M. Forster and stated to be semi-autobiographical of his life (OF A CERTAIN PART OF HIS LIFE, NOT HIS WHOLE LIFE, AS IT IS IMPLIED). The book was banned for many years (AND FORSTER HIMSELF WANTED HIS BOOK TO BE PUBLISHED AFTER HIS DEATH, WHICH OCCURRED IN 1970) and it wasn't until 1987 (YES, IT WASN'T UNTIL THEN BUT ONLY BECAUSE THE FILM PROJECT COULD NO BE PUT TOGETHER BEFORE -- OR AFTER CENSORSHIP STARTED TO BECOME MORE «BROAD-MINDED» IN THE LATE 1960's) that this visually splendid film was released from Merchant-Ivory - ("A Room With A View", "Howard's End"). Set in early 19th century England (NO ! EARLY 20TH CENTURY !, etc.»

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