With the eroticism dialled right down, Lady Chatterley’s Lover ends up leaving me disappointed
“I wondered what the hammering was”
From the creator of the likes of Line of Duty, you might have expected something more of a rollicking version of DH Lawrence’s perennial classic Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Or maybe vague memories of the 1994 version with Sean Bean and all the teenage hormones thus provoked linger a little too long… Either way, Jed Mercurio’s adaptation plays out just a little too safely to really inflame any passions.
Everything is present and correct. The core of the story – after her husband is fucked by the First World War, Lady Chatterley gets fucked by the gamekeeper – remains, random bits of artistic license make the literary translation to the televisual medium more effective (as well as inevitably riling up purists), and a photogenic cast led by Holliday Grainger, Richard Madden and James Norton.
But with the eroticism dialled right down (honestly, Bodyguard was sexier than this), the shift to a more nuanced telling of a story about class ructions, dealing with disability and the pain of loving someone makes it a more muted affair. And thus its subtleties turn into something you have to be in the mood for. Tonight, that wasn’t me but it is still a very decent adaptation.
