Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more

 

Lady Chatterley (2007)

Director: Pascale Ferran

5

Critics' rating

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out New York

Everyone knows how D.H. Lawrence’s infamous novel was beset by scandal and banned before being hailed as a literary landmark. Few folks seem to understand that its hyperventilating prose was designed to be both titillating and transcendent: the adulterous shtup as a step toward enlightenment. Film versions didn’t help, ignoring sacramental subtext in favor of either Masterpiece Theatrestuffiness or generous helpings of beef and cheesecake. Pascale Ferran, however, has changed all of this in one fell swoop; her long, languid take on Lawrence’s pro-sex parable is less an adaptation than a reclamation. She not only knows the book’s narrative intimately but also bothered to read between its lines, pinpointing every spiritual element to the erotic encounters between the desperate housewife (Hands) and her virile gamekeeper (Coulloc’h). You won’t find a more effective hosanna for the existential healing powers of humping.

Favoring Lawrence’s second of three Chatterley manuscripts and opening in 1921 (when WWI’s industrialized Thanatos still hovered in the air), the film quickly establishes the couple’s Edenic playground as a third character. Liaisons take place within landscapes of lush greenery; the soundtrack often consists of nothing but birds chirping and the distant echo of a babbling brook. Apparently, it’s nice to fool (around) with Mother Nature after all. Even when the director tiptoes into the realm of ridiculous hippie behavior—does anyone put flowers on their lover’s genitals?—Lady Chatterley retains an ability to hypnotize. Tasteful yet ecstatically turned-on, Ferran’s interpretation reworks legendary highbrow “smut” into a textured story of rebirth.

Author: David Fear 2007-06-24 22:03:15

Time Out New York


  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields





Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.