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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with WILLIAM HALL
Published: 23 August 2007

Marina Hands as Lady Chatterley

Chatterley falls for our former deputy PM?

LADY CHATTERLEY
Directed by Pascale Ferran
Certificate 18

NOT so much lust in the dust as an over-long (2hrs 40 mins) exploration of the senses.
Apparently DH Lawrence wrote three versions of his scandalous novel, and this French film is based on the second, published under the rather unfortunate title John Thomas and Lady Jane, with the virile gamekeeper Mellors now called Oliver Parkin.
All very confusing.
But director Pascale Ferran injects fresh emotional complexity into the familiar story, as aristocratic Lady Constance (Marina Hands) finds herself in a well of loneliness after her husband (Hippolyte Girardot) returns from the First World War front a broken man, con-demned to spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
She finds solace in the arms of their taciturn gamekeeper (Jean-Louis Coulloch), who awakens all those desires and longings she has kept hidden.
Marina radiates the luminescence of a young Ingrid Bergman, but I have to say the middle-aged Parkin bears an unnerving resemblance to John Prescott.
The film notched up five Cesars, France’s Oscars, and its exquisite photography (by
Julien Hirsch) reflects scenes of sensual intimacy that are positively poetic.

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