I was amazed by how bad last night's Lady Chatterley was. I mean, Sean's 1993 version was directed by Ken Russell - so it appears pretty dated today, despite the brilliance of our man's performance (which frankly rose above the rest of it). The costumes in the recent one were gorgeous but the characterisation was so meagre that the main protagonists may as well have been tailor's dummies (and really, please, WOULD Lady Chatterley -would any countrywoman in 1920? - walk through the woods in silk and brocade?). There was not a single moment when I believed in the relationship between Mellors and Lady C - let alone any sexual chemistry between them at all. One minute she is bossily reprimanding him, the next they are in bed together. No agony or irresolution is suggested. The book is about sex and producers have jettisoned that in favour of a vaseline-lensed romance which the script and characterisation doesn't support.
In fact halfway through I turned off the sound so I could get on with some work as it didn't seem to matter what the characters said at all. I was pleased to see Clifford C get a bit less of the caricature treatment - and absolute ANYONE is a better act than poor old James Wilby. Holliday Grainger, who has the kind of prettiness that is designed for period drama, was directed to be a feisty Connie which just came across as pert and aggressive; at no point do we feel her unease at her own social position. Richard Madden as Mellors is traumatised by war and gloomy, which is OK I suppose - but I'm afraid he had the sexual dynamism of a hamster. The final scene in which Mellors drives Connie off into the sunset in Sir Clifford's rolls royce, is grotesque, unsympathetic and entirely un-Lawrentian.
So, that's what I think!
