Lady Chatterley's Lover (2015)

The only other version of Lady Chatterley I have seen was the 1993 version directed by Ken Russell, the Infant Terrible of British Cinema returning to BBC television. The series was a critical and ratings success and of course whipped up controversial headlines but this was Russell being respectful for the television medium although he still added a bit of his flair in which I believe was his last substantial directing project.

This cut down version directed and adapted by Jed Mercurio once again shows that the good doctor tends to struggle outside the confines of a hospital ward.

Constance Reid marries the upper class Sir Clifford Chatterley a wealthy mine owner who is paralysed in the Great War. Her sexual frustrations drives him to a passionate affair with the gamekeeper Mellors who also served in the trenches with her husband.

Although DH Lawrence novel becomes infamous for its sex the book also examined the class relationships between the wealthy and the working classes.

Holliday Grainger plays the sultry Lady but she looks more innocent and vulnerable, rejected by her wheelchair bound husband who she loves but he can no longer can get physical with her.

James Norton plays Sir Chatterley and Richard Madden is Mellors but I felt both actors were interchangeable for each other's parts not something you can say about Sean Bean in the Russell version.

The sexual content here was toned down. Mercurio did not want the sex scenes to overpower the drama but he also subdued the class war aspects of the novel as he made everyone too nice.

Sir Chatterley is shown as the decent sort of landowner despite his snobbishness, injured doing his duty for King and Country, wanting an heir and its only towards the latter part of the film that the class divide is raised more explicitly.

The tenderly short sex scenes robs Mellors of the animal passion that attracts both he and Lady Chatterley. In short the drama leaves him impotent because without the sex he really is not that interesting a character.

The ending based on a draft of the novel does not entirely work for me. Both Lady Chatterley and her lover leaving together to an uncertain future seems far fetched for the time period. She has given up her title, wealth to a man who seemingly has no prospects now he has lost his job.