Hugh Grant and James Wilby play the leads in this film version of E.M. Forster’s tale of forbidden male love in 1914. It wasn’t until 1970 that the book could be published. Both of the leads picked up awards in Venice.
Maurice evokes the stultifying conformity of English society on the even of World War I. Cambridge students Maurice Hall (James Wilby) and Clive Durham (Hugh Grant) fall in love. As homosexuality is illegal in post-Victorian England they have to keep their feelings for one another entirely secret. After all, poet, dandy and celebrity Oscar Wilde was sentenced to two years in prison for his interactions with Lord Alfred Douglas in 1895. After a friend is arrested for homosexuality, Clive leaves…
