allow me to offer this trio of gifs from three of my favorite scenes
they all make me sensibly chuckle, this movie is a treat
Ah yes, Clive biffing Maurice over the head with his political speech. This is at least the second instance of closet!Clive getting inappropriately physical with Maurice when Maurice would really prefer not. (See also ‘Hail fellow!’ and the unsolicited hair-ruffling in the Russet Room.)
@ultra-rockart It would be amusing there *was* a scene in which Maurice biffs Clive over the head with a Conservative Party electoral speech, but … nope.
If you mean Maurice’s earlier physicality with Clive, there are many differences, not least that whole-hearted physicality is integral to Maurice’s personality, while Clive is the opposite. 20-year-old Maurice does it in the spontaneous flush of first love and clumsy desire. The ‘mature’ Clive only starts the biffing/hair-ruffling after he’s married and no longer interested in Maurice – and Clive specifically does this in scenes in which he believes (wrongly) that Maurice has found a ‘girl’ to marry.
Younger Clive’s unreadiness for Maurice’s physicality is a red flag that this be an issue for the future of their relationship. Older Clive’s sexless physicality comes at the precise moment when Maurice is pulling away from Clive – and Clive’s teaching – and about to take a different path. This becomes fully clear in Maurice’s speech in their final scene together, where (as many viewers have observed) Maurice has gained all the intellectual confidence, eloquence and authority which were once Clive’s.
