Lady Chatterley (2007)

C-

Pascale Ferran's French cinematic adaptation tries to capture the posture of D.H. Lawrence's daringly sensual classic novel, but fails to grasp its soul. Yes, in place of explicit sex on text, we get explicit sex on film. However, sex, which was once exuberantly taboo, is now mundane; and aside from this, Lady Chatterley seems to have little else to fall back on.

The film revolves around Constance (Marina Hands), the wife of wealthy but wheelchair-bound Clifford Chatterley (Hippolyte Girardot). Sexually frustrated, and further sinking into debilitating depression, she entertains romantic notions with the quiet, "uncouth" gamekeeper of the estate, Parkin (Jean-Louis Coulloc'h). Eventually, they began a passionate affair, through which they both slowly uncovered the nature of the attraction between them.

What started out as a promising, if not intriguing, period piece (mostly attributable to Marina Hands' arresting performance, slowly turned into an episodic collage of not-so-interesting moments, occasionally interrupted by narrative texts on screen or voice-overs to fill chronological gaps. By the two hour mark, whatever charm the movie possessed had disappeared; even Hands' performance outlived its welcome. The movie eventually ended past the two-and-half hour mark, though it was not an "ending" as much as an abrupt roll of the end-credits, though by that time everyone was, more than anything else, thankful.

Lady Chatterley is a talky movie, even by French standards, because there isn't many things going on. It is filled with caricature characters in lackluster events which are all but repetitive. Constance's affair with Parkin shows a little too much skin and too little heat; their relationship is passionless, and the characters did not seem to have much chemistry to begin with. And this, in essence, is Lady Chatterley's most revealing and fundamental flaw. One would think that a movie adapted from such a classic source would at least have substance in place of style - this one did not really have either.
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