Maurice (1987)

Directed by James Ivory. Starring James Wilby, Hugh Grant, Rupert Graves, Denholm Elliott, Phoebe Nicholls, Mark Tandy, Simon Callow, Ben Kingsley, Patrick Godfrey, Billie Whitelaw, Judy Parfitt, Barry Foster. [R]

Understated and underseen Merchant Ivory production released in the forgotten space between their higher-profile A Room with a View and Mr. & Mrs. Bridge, which also happened to be the height of the AIDS epidemic. Maurice (Wilby) comes of age while attending Cambridge in Edwardian England, falling in love with an aristocrat (Grant) who shares his feelings but is afraid of the consequences should an illicit tryst be discovered, so they never consummate their passion. A “cure” for Maurice’s homosexuality through hypnosis doesn’t work (duh), so he turns to a more willing lover in the form of a gamekeeper (Graves) at the aristocrat’s estate. Adapted from a novel by E. M. Forster (who also penned “A Room with a View” and the book which became arguably the most famous Merchant Ivory film of all, Howard’s End), James Ivory’s high-class treatment is subtle and sensitive, and his lushly handsome aesthetic underpinning the period décor is a given. Although the story gets a little lost in the details and redundant yearnings in the last hour, and Wilby is more distracted than his ductile, dashing co-stars, it’s graceful and bittersweet in the right ways—there’s sadness in the finale, but it’s far more optimistic than the average gay-themed motion picture from its era. Character actor Julian Wadham makes his feature film debut in a small role; Helena Bonham Carter appears in an uncredited cameo.

79/100