What Is the Story About?
The story follows Lady Constance Chatterley’s marriage to the dashing aristocrat Sir Clifford Chatterley as it turns sour and distant once he returns severely wounded from the First World War. Distant, impotent and confined to a wheelchair, Clifford ignores Constance. Constance seeks comfort in the company of the estate’s lonely gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors. The duo comes closer than ever and owing to the social divide between the upper class and the working class, a scandal breaks out and ostracises them both. What will Lady Chatterley choose between propriety and love forms the rest of the story.
Performances?
Emma Corrin is exceptional as Lady Chatterley. Although her face quite looks misfit sometimes for a period piece, she patches it up with her measured and nuanced performance. Her closeups are tender and so much full of yearning. There’s a particular scene where Lady Chatterley tends to baby chickens and what Corrin does there could melt anyone’s heart.
Jack O’Connell‘s Oliver Mellors could’ve been a lot better. The actor definitely has his own moments, but the character would’ve been a lot more passionate at the hands of a better actor. In comparison to the actors who played Oliver Mellors in previous adaptations like the recent 2015 one starring Richard Madden, O’Connell falls behind.
Analysis?
In the Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre adaptation of the D.H.Lawrence literary classic ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’, infidelity, love, freedom, acceptance, attention, understanding and one’s becoming takes over the ghosts of class-divide. Although, the definitive conflict in the story is class-divide, the film doesn’t take much time to brush over it’s seriousness but rather treats the story like a template period romance-against-all-odds. Add to it, there’s some stagnant and passion-less sex as well.
This latest adaptation of Lady Chatterley’s Lover takes more than one third of it’s duration to establish how Constance Chatterley is in an unhappy marriage. Having relegated merely to a position of a care-giver and not wife, Connie tries to find comfort in her paralysed husband’s game-keeper Oliver. The exact moment when Connie finds attachment in Oliver is so poignant. Emma Corrin’s best individual scene in the film, this.
They get closer to each other and ofcourse, there’s a lot of sex. What’s praise-worthy is the evident female gaze and tenderness in the sensuousness portrayed onscreen. But what doesn’t work in Lady Chatterley’s Lover is the chemistry. The duo have their own vulnerable moments individually and together, but the burning passion is missing onscreen despite beautifully shot moments of love-making. Additionally, the narrative does little to enforce that their love-story is something on the lines of ‘us against the world’ either.
Emma Corrin looks too modern and stubborn onscreen for the part in Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Not that her performance glitches, but sometimes the believability is suspended. We are expected to feel sorry and root for a woman chained and likely to be separated from her lover by aristocratic patriarchy, but Emma makes us believe that she has it inherently in her to fight the world for her love. But then, that could be a creative choice as well.
In short, Lady Chatterley’s Lover is a beautifully shot, well scored and well enacted period romance. But for an erotic period piece based on one of the most infamous literary classics, the film offers little burning passion. It also doesn’t help when the film is overlong, over-stretched and falls flat by the culmination sequence.
Other Artists?
Matthew Duckett‘s performance as Clifford Chatterley is quite appreciable. He performs the condescending, gas-lighting, self-pitying and snobbish upper class war veteran role with aplomb.
Joely Richardson‘s Mrs. Bolton is yet another performance with so much warmth and respect. None of the other characters register much.
Music and Other Departments?
Lady Chatterley’s Lover is very gorgeous to look at and listen to. The percussion scores and the jazz from Isabella Summers elevates the film, it’s premise and melancholic setting. Benoît Delhomme captures the essence and beauty of UK landscape quite like none other. The film is also well-lit throughout.
Highlights?
Emma Corrin’s Performance
Cinematography
Score
Core Story
Feminine Gaze
Drawbacks?
Lack of Chemistry
Passion-Less Romance
Duration
Did I Enjoy It?
Yes. In Parts
Will You Recommend It?
Yes. But with Huge Reservations.
Lady Chatterley’s Lover Movie Review by Binged Bureau
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