There is absolutely nothing wrong, per se. with this new Netflix adaptation of Lady Chatterley’s Lover. I just thought it was totally pointless.
Emma Corrin, who uses they/them pronouns and may well be by some distance the most talented actor of their generation, is really very good as Lady Constance Chatterley; in fact I would describe their performance as the quivering, thwarted, yearning ‘Connie’ as faultless. Jack O’Connell is fine as gamekeeper Oliver Mellors. The Derbyshire-born actor is also hugely talented, but he doesn’t have much of a chance to express himself with any range in this role as generic sexy peasant hunk.
“Ooh ay’ve never met anyone loike you before,” he croons in his all-purpose country accent. When he gets angry he throws some lemons across a room, but his anger doesn’t feel particularly animated.
D.H. Lawrence’s novel tells the explicit tale of a Baronet’s wife who begins a torrid affair with her gamekeeper after her husband is badly injured in the war. It was Lawrence’s last book, first published privately in 1928. Due to what was considered its pornographic nature it was not published openly in the United Kingdon until 1960, when Penguin Books became embroiled in a history-making obscenity trial as a result. The book immediately sold millions of copies and was notorious for its candid descriptions of sex and use of four letter words.
The story has been adapted for film and TV many times, most notably by the BBC in 1993, when a luminous Joely Richardson (who reappears in this adaptation as the devoted Mrs Bolton, Clifford’s nurse and companion) played Lady Constance opposite Sean Bean, who gave a career-defining performance as Mellors. The BBC had another go with far less success in 2015 with Holliday Grainger and James Norton. There have also been other film adaptations, one by the director of cult erotic film Emmanuelle.
This has been billed as the sexiest Lady Chatterley yet and God, they work hard at it. I actually felt quite sorry for them. Corrin deserves an Oscar for this performance and O’Connell tries bloody hard too – the problem is there isn’t a scintilla of chemistry between them and as a result the sex is strangely boring.
Matthew Duckett, playing the paralysed, frustrated Sir Clifford Chatterley is perfectly good but unremarkable. Richardson’s turn is decent – although the fascinating nuances and subtleties of Mrs Bolton’s ambivalence towards the Chatterley’s are left unexplored, which is a shame.
Here The Mustang’s Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre occupies the director’s chair, with Life of Pi’s David Magee having written the script. Benoît Delhomme, who has shot several high-fashion promo films as well as celebrated features such as The Theory of Everything, is on cinematography. He basically turns everything a shade of blue, which doesn’t really add anything but doesn’t particularly detract either.
It is an elegant, if deeply unadventurous production, but at least Netflix didn’t cheapen it – the period details all seem spot on, even if the servant folk are a bit central casting – as if you’re going round a National Trust property and the people who work there are putting on a display. The mining folk with their sad sooty faces are similarly reduced, and DH Lawrence’s thumping great theme in the book, about the misery and savagery of industrialisation, is glossed over.
In fact all the great themes of the novel are neglected; this is really just a story of class division and sexual awakening, which is fine, but with a cast this strong, it could have been so much more. On the plus side, there’s a good scene where the lovers dance naked in the rain; a moment of sheer, joyful abandon.
Ultimately, viewers who haven’t read the book, or seen better adaptations of it probably won’t even notice its shortcomings, and perhaps it will even introduce a new generation to Lawrence’s most famous work. But otherwise, it’s hard to see the point.
