Rectifying E. M. Forster? The Film Version of Maurice

The novels of E. M. Forster, the acclaimed British author of such popular works as Howards End (1910) and A Passage to India (1924), attracted the attention of a number of prominent film‐makers in the 1980s and early 1990s. To the surprise (and consternation) of many, Forster’s posthumously published Maurice (1971), a novel concerning the plight of a young stockbroker struggling with his sexual orientation in Edwardian England, was adapted for the screen in 1987. By far the most controversial of Forster’s works, Maurice―even to its admirers―contained a number of glaring weaknesses, most notably in its characterizations of its three leading characters, none of whom was completely convincing. Worse still, to many readers its poorly drawn title character invited little sympathy. Moreover, the fanciful resolution of the novel, in which middle‐class snob Maurice Hall chooses to defy the laws and conventions of his time by forming a relationship with earthy under‐gamekeeper Alec Scudder, has been strongly criticized as ill‐advised wish‐fulfillment on the part of its author. This essay examines how the 1987 Merchant‐Ivory film production of Maurice seeks to rectify the inherent weaknesses of the novel upon which it is based through its efforts to improve the characterizations of its leading characters, enhance the overall credibility of its plot, and its numerous departures from its source material.  In its comparative analysis of the novel Maurice and its screen adaptation, the frequently asserted criticism that the latter is overly reverential to the former is also challenged.