Lady Chatterley's Lover

The plot of D.H. Lawrence's famous novel of passion and mores is lifted mostly intact, but everything has a dumbed-down and trashed-up quality that makes the resulting adaptation anything but faithful. Sylvia Kristel once again proves inadequate to the task of carrying a movie, and what's more looks much older than her real age (28), as well as that of the even younger character Lady Chatterley. Instead of smoldering with forbidden passion, she seems listless and uninterested in the affair that is central to the story's power. Nicholas Clay also seems unconvincing as the virile but coarse Mellors. Why he would be the object of romantic fascination for any woman of class seems a mystery not worth investigating. The pastoral look of the film is pretty nice, plus it also features good period detail and costumes, but the script is extremely weak and the dramatics - especially among the supporting performances - are just not sharp enough to properly drive a story of class betrayal and social scandal.

Approach with extreme caution.

Lady Chatterley's Lover is understandably controversial but it is also a compelling read, though not a personal favourite. This film is not exactly terrible as there are some good things to see on display but the maligning it has gotten is as understandable as the book being controversial. The photography mostly has a nostalgic quality to it while the costumes and sets are exquisite in colour and detail. The score is seductive and hauntingly beautiful, Sylvia Kristel is a real beauty, the second half is an improvement over the first half with some appropriately steamy moments and Nicholas Clay as well as being astonishingly handsome and sexy is quite good as Oliver. Unfortunately Kristel's acting talents do not translate here, throughout she is very wooden and bland, while on the other side of the scale Shane Briant's hammy over-acting grates after a while. The supporting cast, and there are some talented actors here, are unable to do much with characters that are written to caricatures(blander than that in some cases). Some of the sexy moments are sensual but too many and most of them verge on lowbrow and too much like a porn film, the book is an explicit one but it's not that trashed up. The script is very underwritten and banal, it is difficult to take seriously anything that the actors say, while the storytelling is really dull with non-existent passion in the first half, the main reason being that while the basic story of the book is intact, the prose, characterisations and passion(mostly) are barely scarce. Some of the editing looks hastily-put together too. All in all, Lady Chatterley's Lover looks good but it is dull and underwritten, and takes the sexual nature of the book to extremes, well at least to me it did. 4/10 Bethany Cox

I read one of D. H. Lawrence's novel in university as part of an English course I was taking, and I found it utterly boring and not making me want to seek out his other works. The only reason why I rented this Lawrence adaptation was that it was produced by famed schlockmeisters Menahem Golan and Yorman Globus, who made some really entertaining trashy movies. This was one of the few times they tried for "respectability", though they chose a story that could also be mined for exploitation material.

But the movie fails both at its serious attempts and with its attempts at exploitation. The script has too many faults that distance the audience. The setup of the situation at the beginning of the movie goes so fast that there's no time to set up characters and make us see what they are feeling. This flaw with the characters continues as the movie goes on, and I was not sure why many times characters did what they did. Oddly, there are also a number of scenes that serve no purpose - if they had eliminated those scenes, and used the extra few minutes to pump up the characters, I'm pretty sure the movie would be a lot better.

As for the erotic element of the movie, it's not there. Even for 1981, the idea of taking a lover must have seem old hat to audiences. The nudity and sex in the movie is not the least bit erotic despite full frontal nudity and explicit sex scenes. Some of this might be blamed on the below average production values - the movie has a murky look throughout, and there's not much effort to beef up the backgrounds with extras or anything that might have taken time and expense to make.

Even if you are a Golan/Globus fanatic like I am, odds are you'll find this as dreary as I did.

I came across this movie on DVD recently at a boot sale and bought it for $1.00.

I first saw it on theatrical release but watched it again the other night.

The story is well known and I won't comment on the movie other than to say it was clearly an attempt at legitimate, low key porn.

But it did take me back to the original cinema viewing, which I saw with my new wife, who I think was particularly embarrassed. Sitting in front of us were an English couple and he was voluble right through the movie, as if it was a comedy.

As we were leaving the theatre he turned to me and said 'I don't know about you but I am going to plant my back lawn out in bluebells'. Broke me up, and I can't think of D.H. Lawrence, without thinking of bluebells.

I am surprised that no one has had a serious go at remaking LCL. It might be that DHL is to difficult for todays literally changed audiences.

Class consciousness is the thematic excuse for this very Victorian-era story of the wife of a debilitated English aristocrat. The wife has certain "needs" that cannot be met by her husband, who is paralyzed from the waist down. So, she finds what she needs in the grounds-keeper, a ruggedly handsome man. Visual eroticism is the real theme, of course.

There's not a lot to the story. The whole thing could have been neatly told in thirty minutes. Here, it's terribly drawn out, with scenes that are way too lengthy. What's really annoying is the vanity that characters exhibit. Lady Chatterley (Sylvia Kristel), in particular, is obsessed with her own body. Partially nude, she stares vainly at herself in a mirror. For his part the grounds-keeper (Nicholas Clay) likes to do outdoor chores with his shirt off, convenient for any sensual woman who just happens to be strolling by. It's all rather obvious and superficial. Only toward the end does the story actually get interesting.

I do like the majestic musical score. And the cinematography isn't bad at all, with some good outdoor scenes in the fog. There are lots of close-up camera shots, and quite a few extreme close-ups. This film is obviously a Sylvia Kristel vehicle. But her acting is stilted and self-conscious.

Maybe the film was sexually daring in its time. By today's standards, "Lady Chatterley's Lover" is quite tame. I would mostly describe it as slow, drawn-out, and dull, with characters who are annoyingly self-centered and vain.