Delayed Reaction: Lady Chatterley’s Lover

Premise: A woman's impotent husband tells her she can have a child with another man, then she goes on and has an affair. Imagine that.

This is based on one of those books that I've known about forever but had no idea what it was actually about. The novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover is a famous banned/scandalous book. Kind of like Lolita. I don't know if the book is any good or if it's just infamous. Regardless, that made viewing this movie fun. I got to go in as a blank slate.

 

You know how with Shakespeare, people are always trying to find ways to adapt it to feel just as compelling now as it did hundreds of years ago? They try to make it edgy or get the actors to give it a more modern cadence. But, no matter what they try, it can't stop feeling like a play from the 1600s. That's how Lady Chatterley’s Lover is. By any modern lens, it's not a very salacious story. I've seen a bunch of movies about affairs. This one even stacks things in Lady Chatterley’s favor. He husband is a jerk. He is also the one to introduce the idea that led to the affair. There's the public inequity that means her life is the one most ruined by this. So, while I believe the story was shocking in 1928, it's just not now. To counteract that though, they really amp up the sex. There's a lot of it in this movie and I was surprised how softcore Netflix let this get. It was a good effort to dust off the story. Not super effective, but I applaud the effort.

 

Casting Emma Corrin as the titular Lady Chatterley works well. My only other exposure to her before this was The Crown, and I'll admit it took me back at first seeing what Princess Diana was up to now. Jack O'Connell is fine as the farm hand she carries on the affair with. I'm bothered by my face blindness to him. I've been aware of him for too long and seen too many things with him to still not recognize him. It doesn't make sense. I have to give Matthew Duckett some praise for his performance. He's playing a paraplegic veteran who is getting cheated on yet, thanks to his performance, I still feel no sympathy for him. It was also fun seeing Ella Hunt show up. I still remember her from the underrated Anna and the Apocalypse.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend