Totally captivated by this film - so much so that stayed up til 4 a.m. to watch it on a satellite channel. The leading actress was magnificent. Read the book many years ago and this version is so faithful to the intent of D.H. Lawrence. In fact makes the whole scenario utterly believable. Disagree with one reviewer who implies that the film makes Sir Clifford sympathetic by not referring to industrial unrest with miners when in fact it is specifically mentioned on more than one occasions - there is mention of a strike and Sir Clifford actually says to Connie that he will break the strike and even if that means loss of business for him that won't matter as he has plenty of other means of income. The beauty of this film is that the characters are multi dimensional and thus thoroughly believable.

D.H. Lawrence's story of a bride committed to an injured first world war officer who returned as a paraplegic is now an established classic. This complex tale has many facets which well repay reading and, not surprisingly, has appealed to many film directors. My home video collection includes four different versions - several others have been released over the years. Most people can associate with the story -.it is is similar to that of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (with at least six major films released as home videos). Both books comprise a rather tragic tale about a modern woman trapped in an almost loveless marriage to an aristocrat who has the wealth to provide for every material need, but no understanding that the emancipation of women has given wives new expectations. Here satisfactory film reviews cannot just restrict comments to the film - they must be conscious of its pedigree, and discuss how faithful it is to the intentions of the book's author. My comments look first at this film and only then at its fidelity to Lawrence's book.As far as I am aware Pascale Ferran's film of Lawrence's book is the only one to have been created by a woman director and this shows in several interesting ways. Her film is quiet and almost subdued if compared with, for example, the one created by Ken Russell. Both of these clearly present certain aspects of the story better, ultimately I hesitate to pick the best - it is very close to a dead heat. To many North American viewers the sound track on Ferran's film will be somewhat sparse. Dialogue is strictly limited to what is important and necessary, there are long intervals of silence and also extended periods where we hear the sounds of nature, the wind, the rain, the chirping of birds etc. The background music is limited to just the right sequences and is never loud enough to be obtrusive - I wish other filmmakers were equally careful, too many Region 1 DVD's resemble enhanced music videos with overloud music drowning out the dialogue. Ferran portrays the clandestine love affair between Connie and Parkin beautifully. It has one extended nude scene with everything subordinated to making sure we appreciate that Connie desperately wants a child to fulfill what has become a very lonely life; and nature in springtime has made her aching void more intolerable. This is underlined much later in the film when Parkin asks her whether she was really drawn to him when their affair began, and she said that she did not know - perhaps it was more her desire for a child. Again at the end of the film when she decides not to immediately seek a divorce, any misconception that she has been overwhelmed by an irresistible romantic passion is destroyed. Clifford is a complex character, he appears much too old to have been a dashing officer during a war which has only just ended and we are given no information about whether they had a real romantic relationship before he was injured and became paraplegic, but there are clear signs that they are essentially living separate lives right from the start of the film. Very early Connie says goodnight to his back as he looks out of a window and, quite dramatically, he replies without even turning round. After she leaves the room he does turn and we see an enigmatic expression which may be indicative of an already failed marriage or may only point to the conflict created when the top part of his body is yearning for what the lower part can not provide. All this is beautifully portrayed with superb cinematography but does not adequately convey the complexities of the novel.Notoriously, D.H. Lawrence tried to bring out the class differences between the gamekeeper and the lady of the manor who became his lover, through their dialogue. He used the f*** word, then forbidden in polite society, not for swearing but as a regular verb more natural for the gamekeeper to use than "copulate". This resulted in a failed prosecution for publishing obscenity, and, less fortunately, the book becoming generally regarded as having an exclusively sexual theme. Along with hating war and embracing the emancipation of women, Lawrence's writings show intense dislike for both aristocratic wealth or privilege and industrialization. It is a long time since I read this work, and I have never read the earlier version on which Ferran's film is said to be based, but my recollections of it are of a young couple originally very much in love who were separated by the war and only finally able to marry after Clifford's disablement. Initially Connie fully accepted this and remained determined their marriage would succeed, but Clifford's autocratic ways of dealing with servants quickly began to distress her. The last straw was the miner's strike which severely hurt her lifelong friend, married to a mine engineer and with a new baby to support. She could not accept Clifford's determination to starve the miners back to work, and found herself becoming increasingly in sympathy with the gamekeeper. This is not shown in Ferran's film which is essentially a romance. At one point Clifford refers to the gamekeeper as "an uncouth fellow", followed by Ferran showing him washing and changing into s clean shirt and tie for a lonely evening in his hut, completely blurring the class distinctions. Lawrence's story is more clearly brought out in the less well known 1998 film made for Czech television (Director Viktor Polesny with Zdena Studenkova starring as Connie) than the films from Ferran, Russell or Just Jaeckin.Overall rating: Film quality 4/5; fidelity to book 2/5; total 6/10.

Lush, leisurely paced movie that shows that sex is not obscene or vulgar. It's as natural as the beautiful fields and streams where the two main characters spend most of their time together. Watching them in this setting, their eventual sexual encounters feel natural and normal unlike so many movies were sex is treated as something dirty and shameful. Unfortunately, the ending just does not work. After drawing the viewer in with several long, lush, sensual scenes, the movie screeches to a halt after a short 5 minute conversation. It doesn't work and there's a few other scenes as well (the one where Lady Chatterley's waiting in her chauffeured car for her husband at the mine) that go nowhere. With a different ending and little editing, this could have been a masterpiece.

Lady Chatterley wasn't what I've been expecting: I went to this film with very modest hopes, and I found myself enjoying it immensely. The film, albeit slow at the beginning, keeps growing on you, thanks to the performances of Jean-Louis Coullo'ch and Marina Hands. Let me tell something about Jean-Louis: he blew me away. A rustic, magnetic Marlon Brando look-a-like, he gives such a nuanced, complex performance that he almost steals every scene he's in and his character comes across as a true force of nature. Forget big stars chewing scenery, this guy is an Actor with a capital "A" and brings one of these true-to-life performances that you don't really see on screens for a while regarding movies. Once in a while, a true Daredevil comes along and ignites the screens with fire, in a performance for ages, and Jean-Louis is one of these guys like Albert Dupontel: you've never seen the guy before, but after the picture is over, you have true respect for the actor and will also never forget the name of the guy. Nowadays, films tend to be a product, a project made to earn producers big money, and Lady Chatterley is the opposite of the Hollywood crap. The film's major setback is running time. There are moments that the film comes to a sudden halt, just to pick up later, but that's fine. Marina Hands was a revelation, and as the film progresses you really testify the depth and moving changes her character goes through, as a lovely woman who really gets to develop a beautiful affection for the troubled and wounded keeper, opening him to a new, big and bright world. There are two outstanding moments that left me speechless SPOILERS AHEAD the crane shot of the leafs and trees, at first wet and gray, slowly turning into a bright and full of life sky, as a great, thrilling piece of music starts to play, then a panoramic shot of the fields and a flying bird, and all of a sudden it's one of these larger-than-life magic movie moments that will live forever. The other moment was the ending, Jean-Louis's lines about discovering a new world with her and how he will do everything to be with her forever, and then the camera shows Marina's face, crying with emotion and happiness, men, that part really stayed with me and choke me up. Lady Chatterley is a must-see!