Directed by James Ivory, the movie Maurice (1987) is a British production adapted from E.M. Forster’s novel of the same name, containing bold themes for its period. Set in Edwardian England, the film tells the inner journey and love of a youth trying to discover his homosexual identity. Edwardian England was truly a terrifying period. While watching the film, I felt that we truly live in a dark world.
England is a country that has gone through very dark periods in terms of LGBT rights. The Edwardian period is one of them. The film is as good as its novel. Even though the events move a bit fast, it is consistent with the novel. It is one of the productions of queer cinema worth watching. There is no need to watch everything that comes our way and be a gluttonous cinema consumer. I provided a link to the book in the first paragraph; I have more critiques there.
I am also leaving the Goodreads link for E.M. Forster’s novel Maurice, published in 1971. I read the novel too. The novel offered a more unique experience than the film. The film moves to subjects more quickly and suddenly. This gave the impression that the film was choppy and suddenly jumped elsewhere. There is more intense emotion in the novel. Reading the book first always offers me a more unique experience.
Not to forget, the author wrote this novel in 1914. However, publishing a novel about homosexuality was impossible. For this reason, his novel was published in 1971 because as time progressed, people’s views on life changed. Even a novel waits 57 years to be published. This is actually a very terrifying situation. It is a high-resolution, clear visual of the cruelty humans inflict on humans; of ruthlessness, of marginalization; of choosing violence and cruelty instead of showing mercy through understanding and acceptance. This film actually became an 8K resolution impression of humanity’s madness and hatred for me.
👉 Curator Recommendation: LGBT movies worth watching
Maurice Movie Plot and Summary
In the novel-adapted LGBT-themed film, a timeless love story blossoms in the shadow of class distinctions and oppressions.
Going to university in the 1910s by not taking up his family’s business, Maurice Hall grew up in a conservative environment. Since his childhood, due to strict religious traditions and environmental pressure, he could not state his sexual orientation. He discovers that there are homosexuals in the friend group he met at university. In those years in England, homosexuality is a crime.
It is considered immorality and perversion. Its punishment is imprisonment or flogging. But these punishments do not have the slightest effect on homosexuality. Because a system that does not accept a human as the person they are merely torments homosexual individuals with punishments made over sexual orientation. Everything inhuman is done to homosexual individuals. Homophobia and homosexual hatred do not fix anything; on the contrary, they further disrupt social justice and peace.
People cannot live freely as they are. In this environment, Hall becomes very close with his friend from school, Clive Durham. (Note: I gently corrected the character names here for accuracy—Clive is the university friend who marries, while Alec is the gamekeeper). A very contentious, complex relationship begins between the two friends. In the early 20th century, when terms like LGBT and gay were not yet known, sexual orientations had not yet broken free from prejudices and myths.
Hall wants to be cured of homosexuality through psychological treatment and hypnosis. But this is not possible. Clive does not want to be known as a homosexual. If someone reports him, his legal career will end. Clive is forced to marry. This is very saddening for Hall.
All of what I explained in the paragraph above is a result of societal pressure and politicians declaring homosexuals a “scapegoat” for votes. When the same discrimination, the same pressure and violence are inflicted on believers, they say “they are judging us for our beliefs.” They say “they see us as the other.” They say “they are taking away our freedom of belief and interfering with our lifestyle.” But the first thing that comes to their minds in the name of conservative and religion-based politics is to destroy homosexuals.
Maurice Movie, The Crime of Homosexuality
But Hall is determined to live as himself regarding his homosexual orientation. He does not care about homosexuals being punished or seen as perverts by society. Truly, in the years the novel was written, homosexual individuals were punished in England. Today, homosexuality is no longer classified as a disease by modern science, evolution, biology, genetics, psychology, and sociology. Science is the head of everything. For science, homosexuality is just a sexual orientation, a gender role. It is that simple.
What makes the situation difficult is those who have brains that cannot discard conservative thoughts from their minds. Ultimately, a human’s entire world of belief, life, and reality is a pile of patterns formed between the electro-chemicals and brain tissue in their head. The hostility towards homosexuality at dogmatic extremes, which is perceived as reality and which some strictly cling to, is actually a pile of bad patterns in the brain. It is the disease of misfiring neurons and interconnections; you can also simply call this “hate.”
Today, it has been almost 50 years since states like England and the USA stopped making LGBT individuals an issue. Defining homosexuality as a crime and perversion was very absurd. For example, there is nothing as absurd as “blue-eyed people being perverts, black-skinned people having low intelligence,” right?
Social Peace, Accepting Another, and Mercy
Well, homosexual hatred is exactly like this in today’s modern thought. States and administrators (those who get votes from the public and hold political power) do not mess with people’s sexual orientation, belief, and lifestyle. Societies where one person does not see another’s lifestyle as a threat or perversion develop, humans develop, happiness increases. When an elite group of superiors is established and political power is handed over to this elite and religious community, problems arise.
These chosen superiors bully with the limitless immunity granted by political power. They see everything other than their own beliefs and lifestyles as “the other,” “inappropriate,” or “heresy.” Actually, what they destroy is not just the people of opposing views; they destroy a society, a country, a culture.
Returning to the movie again…
His closest university friend received a 6-month prison sentence because of homosexuality, and Clive got married. Even though Clive marries, he is still homosexual. Hall will fall in love with a servant working at his ex-lover’s estate. Hall, who falls in love with the estate’s gamekeeper Alec Scudder, has now drawn his own path.
Hall decides to live as his biology requires, that is, exactly as he is, as a homosexual. The movie progresses quite slowly with a runtime of 2h 20m. As a viewer, you will wish for it to be a bit more fluent. But it will be a good viewing to compare the spirit of the period—England amidst the homosexual hatred of the 20th century—with its transformation today. Finally, class distinction, hostility towards gender roles, and every kind of marginalization all have a cursed face.
Maurice is not just a love story; it is also a narrative of suppressed identities, class differences, and the search for freedom. It does not matter how old you are. Maurice, both as a novel and a film, stands as a profound experience.
You should also watch the movie Blue Jean (2022), which explains the meaningless war against homosexuals during the Margaret Thatcher era in the 1980s and the hatred in the institutional sphere. It is the story of a lesbian physical education teacher. Thatcher practically wanted to execute the judgment of LGBT individuals with the “Section 28” law under the guise of conservatism. This was England’s latest incident. Today, institutional and state-sponsored LGBT hatred and human slaughter have been thrown into the trash bin of history in most countries like England.
McCarthy’s “Lavender Scare” act also destroyed itself as a disgrace to humanity after persecuting homosexuals for years. In Germany, there was Paragraph 175 in the 1940s. In Poland, between 1985 and 1987, LGBT individuals were practically rounded up with Operation Hyacinth.
In those periods, everything had a punishment other than vilifying and humiliating homosexuals. States that got rid of this state of social madness progressed more at peace with their countries and citizens.
 is an unforgettable homosexual love story set amidst England's strict class structure and suppressed desires.){kind=link}