Lady Chatterley's Lover

A new adaptation of D. H. Lawrence's 1928 novel. Connie is married to Sir Clifford Chatterley, who came back from the war paralysed. He writes, runs his mines, and asks his wife to find him an heir; it does not matter by whom, provided the man is of the right class. Connie begins a relationship with Oliver Mellors, the estate's gamekeeper. The novel's real subject is class rather than sex, and the film keeps that: Mellors is working class, Connie is the lady of the house, and their being together is treated in the village as a crime. The book was banned as obscene on publication; an unexpurgated edition became legal in Britain only after the court case of 1960. Emma Corrin plays Connie and Jack O'Connell plays Mellors. Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre directed. The film does not hide the sex and does not put it at the centre either; its interest is in Connie's attempt to have a say over her own life. A solid choice for anyone who likes period drama and love stories built on class. For a viewer expecting the novel's hardness it is noticeably softened, and its ending is more optimistic than the book's.