The Chatterley Affair

There's a lot crammed into this 90-minute teleplay and that's its downfall. The factual account of a mesmerizing news story about the availability of a so-called 'obscene publication' is reduced to the highlights of the trial. The fictional romance that runs parallel to it isn't explored thoroughly enough to be satisfying.

First the good... the acting, actors, and settings. Rafe Spall and Louise Delamere are riveting in their scenes. The miserable and contemptuous majesty of the British judicial system of 1960 is also magnificently reproduced. The jurors are fun to watch - even if they do tend to overplay their hands.

Kenneth Cranham and Claire Bloom are wheeled in to tell the whole saga as a flashback... which isn't really needed and just chews up valuable time away from the two dramas going on. Also, neither are convincing in their attempts to display spontaneous interviews.

You wouldn't have thought it from watching this film, but the obscenity trial was hugely important in 1960. Oh, sure... we're told that it is but still the whole magnificent battle between Penguin Paperbacks and a stuffy, cloistered ruling class is reduced to being a backdrop to the steamy affair of two of the jurors.

Helena is a wealthy, older, sophisticated woman going through a divorce. She ropes young Keith into an extramarital affair and develops feelings for him in the few short days they are together. Keith, on the other hand, is an office clerk and finally has his mind opened by the book (Lady Chatterley's Lover) and his new mistress.

Unfortunately, the stories overlap and interfere with each other in a distorted way. It's possible that the affair between the two jurors is a contemporary metaphor for the subject matter of the book... if so it's a rather hamfisted attempt to conflate what could have been two good TV movies. In other words - it's trying to be too clever.

There's a lot of swearing and a good amount of both male and female nudity but this story needs it. (Spall's wobbly bottom offers up one of the few moments of relief!) The inclusion of the wobbly bottom and other bits, plus the harsh language are pertinent to the story. They help to convey the scandalous nature of the trial and the attitudes of a generation of Victorian thinking elitists who served to control what the British were and were not allowed to see.

Although this review sounds negative, the movie is still a worthwhile drama to see... but you may come away feeling that the whole affair is rushed and doesn't do either of the two stories much justice.

A coupled getting laid in layers:

We have the book, something fairly tepid by the standards of only a few decades later. Its a serious book.

We have the trial over its publication in Britain. It continues to remind us how penetrating government nannies can be. We can never get enough reminding. The trial presented here uses words from the actual trial, and when you see it, you see a dramatization of what really happened. Its enough to make you cry, especially with the current trend in the US to choose judges like the nitwit revealed here. This bit of the film is remarkably well done.

We have a jury-room layer, where we encounter the twelve diverse people who collectively will decide for a nation whether sex deserves recognition when depicted artistically. This part is dreadful. We see some bluster. We have a John Gielgud-like figure who eventually convinces everyone that the thing "isn't corrupting." Coming after 12 Angry Men, and knowing the importance of the event, this is pale stuff, horribly written with no clear dynamics. Its very, very bad, this.

We have a layer of two jurors, strangers who are attracted to each other. This happens before the subject of the trial is known. But as they read the book, they begin a week-long affair during the trial where they replicate the sex in the book. The woman isn't quite the class of Lady Chatterley, and actually does seem ungrounded. In fact we have no reason at all to know her, even if her part were written to reveal her. We do get to know the man, someone completely lacking in will, influenced by both the book and the woman. What's happening is that in fact, he is "corrupted" by the book, or at least the notions of the book. This could have been turned into something brilliant. But it isn't.

Then we have another layer: the two characters revisited in interviews forty years later. These are two brilliant actors and they are written deeply. This part is fantastic, but exists in only 5 minutes or so. These moments are interspersed throughout and provide a distance. Its a very good thing, this: watching, commenting.

And then there's the final layer: this is a TeeVee show. It has nudity, close to explicit sex, and all of the words that the prosecution found so repellent. The existence of this layer is a statement of sorts. Everything the prudes worried about is available on TeeVee. Hard to see who won, when this has so little actual merit.

All in all, its an intelligent construction. Too bad the writer wasn't up to it. There are some very clever notions that we can dimly see but not reach. he's no Lawrence, even though he knew how to read him.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

In 1960 the famous trial for obscenity began with a jury of twelve British men and women sitting in judgement on DH Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover. As the trial progresses two of the younger jurors find themselves caught up in the sexual nature of their temporary new task and start an affair. The slightly rough Keith has a wife at home in a small house with little excitement and falls aggressively into intercourse with the more upper-class and free Helena.

Imagine my lack of surprise to find an Andrew Davies script rich in sexual material and fruity language! I have nothing at all against that but at times I do struggle to shake the feeling that he is doing it for the sake of doing it. The Chatterley Affair in particular seems to revel in the use of very strong language (even by today's standards) in the courtroom sequences but the meat of the story is in the entirely fictional affair between jurors Keith and Helena. Here we see characters but awakened and damaged by an increasing understanding of sexuality within themselves and it is this that provides the value in the film. It is not perfect though because the film doesn't make this as much of a focus as one would have hoped and perhaps the developments are not as smart and insightful as the script would like to think. That said though, the main relationship is still engaging though and it does just about carry the thing along.

The film surprised me by perhaps not being as strong on the actual case itself. In this regard it did very much seem to wallow in the use of strong and sexual language. I didn't get that engaged in the actual debate within the case and it did strike me that Davies was not particularly interested in it as much as he was the more fictional aspect. It is a shame because I do think it would have been a more rounded film if he had managed to actually make the court case interesting rather than just having it in the film as a frame more than anything else. The approach does work for the cast though and it gives both Spall and Delamere good material to work with together. Perhaps not perfect but the two of them do work well off one another. The supporting cast give lesser performances but they do turn out solid enough period caricatures in mostly unremarkable ways. Hawes' direction is reasonable enough but suffice to say you are never in any doubt that you are watching a BBC drama.

Overall then, an interesting and obviously sexual drama but one that is weakened by the fact that the court case is little more than a frame and Davies has done little of interest with it on its own. The relationship aspect is just about enough to carry it and make it worth seeing but I was disappointed that it didn't do more outside of this main thrust.

Brilliant acting, photography, dialogue, you name it. This is a fantastic production from the BBC and Andrew Davies does it again with his great screen writing. Rafe Spall is wonderful as Keith, providing a sensitive and genuine spark of reality into his performance. Definitely a talent to watch. The actor who plays Keith as an old man also deserves an award for being absolutely believable. The action centres around the obscenity trial for D. H. Lawrence's 'Lady Chatterly's Lover', where two of the fictitious jurors find the book somewhat inspirational. Like the book, the programme doesn't modestly shy away from sex scenes. Instead they are quite graphic and clear, and yet they are in no way smutty or gratuitous. They are an integral part of the story and it is an artistically brave choice to have included them. This is a great production and will be one of the BBC's classics.