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MRICE AT 30: THE GAY PERD DRAMA THE WORLD WASN'T READY FOR
Many of their greatt films evoke a sense of unspoken sire, of any persuasn, simmerg beneath a placid surface of m – a reprsn wh which many a gay person, unable always to eely articulate their romantic self, has been able to empathise.
Mrice, a sense, was the duo’s cematic g-out: the story of a young man growg to his homosexualy polely hostile English society, ’s a film that exquisely queers the stiff-upper-lip emotns so central to the Merchant Ivory ’s a slight aloofns to Mrice that is part of s bety. The film only breath when he fally do, first via a tratg romantic affair wh fellow stunt and social climber Clive Durham (Grant, perfectly his floppy charm years before Four Weddgs and a Funeral) – but ’s heartbreak that giv the film s red-blood there, as a send romantic chapter wh gamekeeper Alec Scudr (Rupert Grav, pletg perhaps the prettit posh-boy triangle screen history) begs, Mrice gas both emotnal sweep and timate psychologil tail: a tame entry may be the LGBT non, but few films have exprsed que so sweetly and nakedly the challeng of simply beg a gay man, partnered or otherwise – how difficult n be to n wh human is not emotnally universal terra, and was a rare subject for prtige herage cema to take on: the film’s rpectful but dispassnate receptn 1987, not an era rich wh queer art the mastream, is no surprise retrospect.