Connie and Oliver.  Still photo from the movie Lady Chatterley’s Lover.  Paul Goldfinger.  Click to enlarge.  It’s not blood, it’s a red pattern on her dress.

Lady Chatterley played by Emma Corrin. Still photo by Paul Goldfinger from the movie. 2022. Click to enlarge.

By Paul Goldfinger, Editor Blogfinger.net

In  1928, D.H. Lawrence , author of the book Lady Chatterley’s Lover, was found guilty of writing an obscene novel.  Years later a court ruled that it was not pornographic. The story is about a  young aristocratic woman, Connie,  who is married to a wealthy man who was wounded in the Great War and is left severely disabled.  She leads  a repressed and boring life with him despite the luxuries and servants; and her needs were not being met.

She falls for the rugged groundskeeper who works for her husband on the  property.

Connie has an affair with him and discovers the great passions that are  waiting to be released. –for both of them.    The graphic sex scenes are exhilarating and  beautiful, and they are essential to tell this story which is of a passionate romance—illicit because they both are married, and  her husband is just a stone’s throw away, and Oliver has a cozy stone cottage in the woods.

This is a December, 2022 Netflix release, and Emma Corrin, coming off a role playing Diana, Princess of Wales, was worried because she had never appeared nude before in the movies and she didn’t know how she would do with the sex scenes which are very steamy.   But she was reassured by having a woman director. She was concerned about those scenes, but she loved the way they were done–emotional and mesmerizing, but not pornographic in the eyes of the actors and reviewers.

Jack O’Connell, playing Oliver the groundskeeper, was also nervous about his roll.

The two of them appear nude in a wonderful scene when they are frolicking happilly about in the rain.  The scene is  full of joy, and both actors took a chance and simply did it with great spontaneity, without evident embarrassment.

We feel sorry for her husband because of his disability, and he loves her very much.   But he is  a boor, and she needs someone else.

The movie is beautifully done with terrific state-of-the-art cinematography.

It’s funny, but a couple we know couldn’t watch it together.  He wasn’t at all interested, and she said that she couldn’t  have watched it with him.

Eileen said, “Nevermind,”    But while I was watching the start of the film in the living room, she wandered in and then decided to sit down; and she stayed there for the whole movie.  I asked her if she liked it; she said it was “beautiful” and heartfelt.

I think it is  actually educational because of its honest portrayal of human sexuality and of a true passionate romance.  Such feelings may not always be acknowledged in movies with love as a theme.

It might be worthwhile for teen-agers to see this R rated film because their appreciation of sex and romance  may consist only of sex education, internet porn, parents who won’t discuss it, groping on dates, ill informed kids their own age, teen-age conformity, and no exposure to what true love/passion actually looks like.

ISABELLA SUMMERS.  Soundtrack of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.   “Wragby”