Women in Love

The vote of 10 stars is given having read and studied the author. The feeling of limbo and not belonging in a time when Britain especially would be changed by the First World War is conveyed well. The futility felt by the few men who returned from the front.

The cast are superb in their roles!

I checked this video out of my local library; when I got it home I was surprised to find the casting of Rosamund Pike and Rachael Stirling was not what I thought: Pike plays Gudrun and Stirling Ursula rather than the other way round. This is a fundamental miscasting that casts a pall over the whole production. I remember Glenda Jackson's Gudrun from the Russell film, how tough, witty and angry she could be, a match for Oliver Reed's Gerald Crich. Rosamund Pike is no competition for Jackson; she seems out of touch with the proceedings much of the time. Take the famous horse and trucks scene: Gerald digs his spurs into his horse's flank (got to show the animal who's boss), while Gudrun shouts at him. There's fury in Russell's version, but none here; it just seems as though Pike's girdle is pinching her a little bit.

Rachael Stirling does better with Ursula, who is a vital, idealistic woman herself, the equal of her more spectacular sister. I regret the inclusion of the Skrebensky scenes from The Rainbow, they serve little dramatic purpose and eat up running time that could better be spent on Hermione, Ursula and Birkin, that awkward triangle. Rory Kinnear is effective as Birkin; the script shows rather than implies his homosexual leanings. I often wondered if Birkin's endless philosophizing about love and sex was just a way of throwing a smokescreen over his same-sex yearnings. It looks like the filmmakers agree with me. Gerald in the novel is a cardboard figure who represents the male principle: hard, unimaginative, domineering--we get it.

The lesser roles: Hermione is played by Olivia Grant who's not a patch on Eleanor Bron for Russell. Saskia Reeves as Anna Brangwen has some moving scenes. Tinarie van Wyk's part is adapted from the Pompadour café scenes; I wish it had been fleshed out, it showed promise.

The first episode of this film is well done. The characters grow, change, adapt, make sense, and are based in the real world. The costumes are lovely. The plot makes sense. The second episode seems to be written and directed by totally different people than the first. The plot makes no sense, climaxing in a remarkably unsatisfactory, confusing ending. There's a long scene between two characters on the beach, physically wrestling and yelling. This comes out of nowhere, is never explained or alluded to. One of the main female character contradicts herself in both her actions and words several times, with no explanation. It's as if her character goes mad for the fun of it.

The first episode is compelling and interesting. The second episode is a complete cluster, leaving one to wish for all those viewing hours back. Unless you are a D.H. Lawrence hobbyist, skip this title.

First, let me state that I am a fan of anything "DH Lawrence", and, particularly, WOMEN IN LOVE (in both of its novelistic forms and its 1969 Ken Russell/Glenda Jackson film adaptation). A HUGE fan.

The above vote of 10 stars is for accepting this adaptation on it's own particular terms. Those terms are established on the melding of themes from the text of THE RAINBOW and WOMEN IN LOVE and the incorporation of thematically related "bits" from other of DHL's writings --- some borrowings from his early THE TRESSPASSER as well, perhaps? We also are back with the sisters themselves instead of the quasi-closeted homo erotic preoccupations of the Ken Russell/Larry Kramer film and, well, Lawrence's book (WIL) itself. (The notorious wrestling scene is intact, but differently)The scriptwriting is an act of brilliant,rejuvenating, irreverence towards a Standard 20th Century Classic. The direction (importantly) executed by a woman, maneuvers the viewpoint away from the potentially sensational --- though, there's enough of that intact ---- and skewers our attention towards psychologically fascinating CHARACTERS and how they think, act, talk, feel and interact. In other words, we are dealing with real people with all of their complexities and the unusual and carefully chosen actors are more than up to the challenge. Metaphysical richness makes itself known through the in-the-viewers'-faces relationships of its characters not unlike the terrain of Ingmar Bergman's SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE. In many ways this and the 2006 LADY CHATTERLEY directed by Pascale Ferran stand together as the beginning of a much-needed "Woman-ist" (or dare I say "Feminist") questioning and restatement of Lawrence's absorption in The Sexes. As a result, we start to get a more complete and therefore more interesting whole picture. This is THE RAINBOW and WOMEN IN LOVE as it might have been written by a woman instead of a man. Perhaps this heralds a trend where more women will delve into Lawrentian territory for cinematic subject matter. The result could be a revelatory body of work for us all.

This is hard and demanding cinema. There's little likable. It is often bleak and sometimes downright ugly --- very little of the pretty or the Romantic to leaven the situation. But, remember, the gist of Lawrence's book, under the purpled prose and poetic flights, was actually that way, too.

So, this writer suggests you --- particularly if "you" are a DHL/WIL Fan --- put away your cherished expectations and your wishes to return to hallowed literary grounds. Open your mind, fight your wish to reject and submit to something totally 180 degrees different and new. It isn't either book --- it's a uncompromising restatement of them.

Many thanks to BBC4 for funding something this radical and risky. It's been a long time since a literary adaptation made me think and feel so long and so deeply in its aftermath.

Bravo! to all involved.

It's hard not to compare this version of "Women in Love" with Ken Russell's 1969 polished rendition. No doubt, viewers interested enough to sit through this 3-hour reinterpretation are familiar with the material. Others may be rightly confused and less than enthused by this slow-moving, cold-hearted rendering. Casting alone doomed this production from the start - Rupert here is quite the nerd. The direction lacks coherence and tension. There's little sense of the milieux from which the characters emerged (particularly in the case of Gerald). Scenes go on far too long. Quite a disappointment on many levels.