Maurice

Snubbed Forever: Hugh Grant 

Dir. James Ivory. 1987, 140 mins.  U.K. DCP. With James Wilby, Hugh Grant, Rupert Graves, Denholm Elliott, Simon Callow, Billie Whitelaw. As a follow-up to their international breakout smash A Room with a View, director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant took an enormous risk with this daring, beautifully mounted adaptation of E. M. Forster’s posthumous novel about a gay man’s coming of age in Edwardian England. Wilby plays Maurice Hall, who falls for dashing school chum Clive Durham, played by Hugh Grant in a performance of heartbreaking complexity, humor, and charm. Clive is afraid to commit to Maurice, despite his profound romantic feelings for him, terrified of the social disgrace, paving the way for Maurice to meet Rupert Graves’s salt-of-the-earth groundskeeper Scudder. It’s impeccably crafted, yet there’s nothing simple or easy about Maurice, a breakthrough gay movie that was ahead of its time and put Grant on the map a full seven years before Four Weddings and a Funeral. 

Tickets: $17.50 / $12 senior and students / $10 youth (ages 3–17) / discounted for MoMI members ($7–$11). There is a $1.50 transaction fee per ticket for all online purchases. The cost of admission may be applied toward a same-day purchase of a membership. 

Order tickets. Please pick up tickets at the Museum’s admissions desk upon arrival. All seating is general admission.