‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ Review: A Heated but also Charming Love Story
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Love is one of the forces that make the world go around. Everyone does things out of love. It can be romantic love, fraternal love, or just love of the arts, your work, or for yourself. So, love stories have always felt universal, everyone knows how it feels to fall in love with someone, and everybody knows how much it hurts. It is a give-and-take process, and cinema has always taken advantage of that to generate as much drama as possible. Lady Chatterley’s Lover is Netflix‘s new romantic drama, and it is available on the platform this weekend.
Lady Chatterley’s Lover is a film directed by Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre and stars Emma Corrin, Jack O’Connell, Matthew Duckett, and Joely Richardson. The film tells the story of Connie Reid, who has just recently become the wife of a Lord in England. However, after his husband comes back from the war, and she must fully become a wife, she meets a new man who teaches her how to love truly. Connie must now choose between her duty and the love of her life.
Netflix comes back with the adaptation of another famous book, and with it, brings the entire fan base so they can watch. The movie is based on the famous novel of the same name, written by D. H. Lawrence and published in 1928. This novel is almost one hundred years old, and its story still manages to capture the imagination of audiences around the world. I can that a success. This isn’t the first Lady Chatterley’s Lover’s adaptation, but it is certainly the one with the highest profile in recent memory.
The book became infamous for its use of slang words that were considered, and still, are considered bad language. And, of course, for its detailed descriptions of sexual acts. Let’s remember that back in the day, talking and much less describing sexual acts was frowned upon in a more severe way than it is nowadays. You could even be thrown in jail for even dare to publish such a thing like this, which is why the novel was published privately for the first time.
However, this time, and to point out just how ironic it is, the novel’s newest adaptation is being released on the biggest streaming service in the world, which means that it is anything but private. Everyone will be able to watch the movie and judge it on its own merits and faults without a moral judge breathing on their shoulder. Does this new adaptation bring something new to the cottage? Or is it just another cash grab? Let’s say that for those who love a good love story and also period pieces, they are going to be pretty happy with this.
Yes, this story is quite old, which means that there is really nothing here that will surprise you very much in terms of plot. Every single thing this story does, has been taken and done by other books and movies countless times. This doesn’t mean that watching isn’t still compelling, but thankfully, the characters and the actors who played them are the one true force behind the appeal of this movie to new generations of viewers. Corrin and O’Connell are a couple of brilliant young performers.
O’Connell has been around since the days of the second season of Skin, which gave us talents such as Nicholas Hoult and Daniel Kaluuya. He is very methodical actors and excels at being one of those silent types. Here, he doesn’t talk too much, and he seems kind of rough, and yet, just like Corrin’s characters says, he manages to be tender. Corrin on the other hand comes right after her fantastic tenure as young Princess Diana in The Crown, and here she stands out once again. We have to keep an eye on this lady, she is really out to conquer the world.
Visually, the movie is quite pleasant to the eyes, and the team has chosen to go with this very naturalistic and rustic look that fits very well into the English countryside. While it also goes into a more stylized shape when it needs to depict the lovers as trapped inside their own fantasy. There are several sex scenes, they are very passionate, but they never cross the line into bad taste territory. It is all done in good faith, and the actors look very well together. You can really feel that there is a connection here that has become quite vital for each of them.
In the end, Lady Chatterley’s Lover doesn’t intend to reinvent the wheel in any shape or form, but thanks to its fabulous cast, it manages to remain compelling and avoid the 50 Shades of Grey effect. Where the sex scenes were the only selling point of the piece. Lady Chatterley’s Lover has a lot more going on an intellectual level. Yes, sex is a vital part of the story, but it mixes the mechanical part of sex with feelings, and it is there where it becomes compelling for us and dangerous for the characters. It is just like it should be in a dramatic film.
