Excellent movie

The movie follows the lives of two young men, Maurice and Clive, both of whom are gay and living in early 1900's England. The movie starts when they are in college and then follows their lives over the next few years.

Initially both Clive and Maurice appear to accept their sexuality and relationship, but as time goes on they both begin to struggle with living in an intolerant 1900's society. They find themselves being forced into having to deal with their sexuality and the social consequences of being gay. Clive gets married to a woman he obviously doesn't really love, while Maurice continues to struggle with his feelings of guilt but still 'refuses' to give in and adopt a truly heterosexual lifestyle. Throughout the film they remain in contact, and at one point Maurice even ends up living in the house with Clive and his wife. The family all seem to like Maurice, and Clive's wife can tell Maurice is in love, but thinks it's with a mysterious girl in London, not her husband. An unexpected twist (well, I did't see it coming, maybe others will) comes later in the film which, to me, is what made the message behind this film so good.

If nothing else, the film gave me an appreciation of just how hard it must have been to be gay in Britain less than 100 years ago. (This really hit home to me when I saw Maurice being sent to jail after being tricked into making a pass at an uncover policeman).

While the first half hour or so is a bit slow, once it got going I was glued to the screen. The movie is shot in an interesting way... despite running for over 2 hours it rarely dwells on any scene or idea for more than a few minutes, making the story seem a bit 'jumpy'. But once you get into it, this actually means the story moves quite quickly and covers a lot of ground in a short period of time.

While the film is about a gay couple, I think it would be suitable to just about anyone. It's ultimately a love story filled with both pain and happiness, the only difference from most films is that it's about love shared between men.

I rented this on recommendation from a friend and liked it so much I purchased the DVD to add to my collection. It's a brilliant film.