To director James Ivory's credit, however, he has recreated that period in pre-World War I England and endowed the platonic passion between two upper-class Englishmen with singular grace in Maurice. [25 Sep 1987]

Mr. Ivory and Ismail Merchant have long since learned to breathe life into their material without excessive reverence, in a manner that is as decorous as it is dramatic. As might be expected, the costumes, settings and cinematography are once again ravishing.

The team of producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory has created another classy film of a classic novel with their stunning adaptation of E.M. Forster's Maurice. [24 Sep 1987]

Maurice's slow, agonized dawning of his true nature and its consequences are as beautifully evoked on the screen as it is on the printed page, thanks to James Wilby's wonderfully unaffected portrayal of Maurice and to Ivory and his co-adapter Kit Hesketh-Harvey's graceful yet succinct script, a miracle of both apt selectivity and development that does full honor to its distinguished source. [01 Oct 1987]

Maurice, based on a posthumously published novel by E.M. Forster, is a well-crafted pic on the theme of homosexuality.

Subtle, sensitive and every bit as swoony as a Barbara Cartland bodice-ripper, James Ivory's superb screen translation of E.M. Forster's Maurice.

Rich in atmosphere, its leisurely pace dwells on repressed passions in Edwardian society.

The film is so well made and acted, because it captures its period so meticulously.

In this forthright screen version of E.M. Forster's posthumously published novel. Directed by James Ivory and produced by Ismail Merchant, who show the same literate skill and the same fidelity to their source that marked "A Room With a View."

Maurice succeeds because [Merchant/Ivory's] trademark flatness is appropriate for the subject.

At its best, the film is moving and thought-provoking, but at other moments it is unintentionally silly. It is not the story but the telling of it that is the problem; at 140 minutes, Maurice simply goes on too long.

The dissection of Edwardian repression never gets beyond the dutiful, tasteful obviousness of a BBC miniseries.