LADY CHATTERLEY: Truncated Tenderness

There is much to both criticize and praise in Lady Chatterley, the new French film adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's once scandalous novel. Now, I would call it probing naturalness. It is the story of Lady Constance Chatterley (Marina Hands). She is unfulfilled by her rich yet poor husband Clifford (crippled by war injury) and stifled by both his monied way of life and his estate Wragby. Contstance finds gratification in the arms of Wragby's gamekeeper, Oliver Parkin (Jean Louis Coullo'ch). Their intimacy opens her up in more ways than one. Lawrence wrote multiple versions of his novel. Prior to seeing Lady Chatterley in New York last weekend, I read the Barnes and Noble Classics version. Director Pascal Ferran chose another version. Despite some minor differences (in the B&N edition, Oliver's last name is Mellors), the film is a faithful adaptation: it includes most of the book's key characters and sequences, as well as its respect for and love of nature. Yet Ferran's attempt to pack as much in as she can comes at a price. In the book, Clifford Chatterley is a major character. Lawrence masterfully paints a portrait of a man enranged just beneath the veneer of gentlemanliness. And Clifford's confrontation with his wife at the novels' close, while packing a literary wallop, is nowhere to be found in the film. In fact, the film ends abruptly and unsatisfyingly. Overall, I give Ferran credit for crafting a straightforward, beautiful looking Chatterley; a Chatterley that maturely tells (mostly) the novel's story and heart without obsessing over its sex. And Ferran boldly keeps for me what is Lawrence's essential message afloat: no matter how many times the sky falls, life must be lived.