I didn’t think this Netflix movie would be much more than a slickly shot rumpy-pumpy. But this seductive adaptation of DH Lawrence’s book was a stylish surprise.
We all know how the story ends. When Clifford (Matthew Duckett), her stuffy, self-centered husband, comes back from World War I paralysed from the groyne down, Lady Constance Chatterley (Emma Corrin, above, best known as Princess Diana in The Crown) gets angry with him.
Constance, who has to take care of Clifford, finds comfort in the rough gamekeeper Mellors (Jack O’Connell), who likes to read James Joyce and do other things outside.
So why should this famous book be turned into a movie again? Well, for one thing, it was made by a woman.
And it is interesting that French director Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre pays more attention to Lady C’s inner life. Also, this is Emma Corrin’s third “there were three of us in this marriage” role, after The Crown and My Policeman. However, the non-binary actor is completely different in every quicksilver turn they make. Even though Jack O’Connell does a good job as Mellors.
Yes, there is a lot of nudity and sex, but the order of the day is tactile eroticism, not graphic smut (it’s a 15 cert). What these two electric young stars really capture is the strong, all-consuming pull between two new lovers.
Out now in selected cinemas and on Netflix from Friday
