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Review

The DVD - Now considered a classic gay novel, Maurice, E.M. Forster's self-suppressed 1914 love story, was not published until after his death in 1970. With the same reverence, respect and regal authority that they brought to his A Room with a View, Merchant Ivory Productions has created an exquisite and sexually bold adaptation of the author's semi-autobiographical novel.
Set in pre-WWI England, the film examines the social and sexual repression of the era in this story of the emotional conflict facing a college student coming to terms with his homosexuality.
James Wilby is perfectly cast in the title role, Hugh Grant gives a precise performance as his frustratingly platonic lover who transforms from free-spirit to social prig, and Rupert Graves is splendid as Alec, the handsome gamekeeper who awakens Maurice's dormant feelings. When Alec climbs in Maurice's bedroom window and into his bed, the hair on this writer's neck goes up, regardless of how many times he has seen this film. An inspiring tale of gay love that transcends class and social barriers. Maurice belongs in every gay man's collection and the release of this new, unedited, digitally-transferred DVD is a long-awaited moment.

Raymond Murray

The Book - Maurice is a classic of gay literature. It tells the story of young Maurice Hall. Maurice had a solid public school education and an undergraduate degree at Cambridge. He was prepared to work in his father's stock brokerage firm, Hill & Hall, in "the city". In a highly structured society, he's a conventional young man in almost every way -- except that he is homosexual. Maurice is in love with his childhood friend, but he accedes him to heterosexuality in college. While on a weekend up at his friend's country estate he falls for the hunky gamekeeper, Scudder. The description of this passionate affair is perhaps the first and certainly the most homoerotic writing to appear in the early twentieth century. Maurice was suppressed by Forster until after his death, as he died resolutely in the closet, unlike his hero, Maurice. An essential novel.