Lady Chatterley's Lover
チャタレイ夫人の恋人
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
The novel Japan prosecuted in the 1950s Chatterley trial, filmed from Connie's side of the bed.
Constance Reid, Connie, marries the baronet Sir Clifford Chatterley and moves from London to his family estate, Wragby. Her sister, Hilda, disapproves; Connie says she loves him for how progressive he is. The day after they consummate the marriage, Clifford goes back to the First World War. Weeks later he comes home paralysed from the waist down and impotent. He wants no one but Connie to look after him, and refuses any other kind of intimacy that might give her pleasure.
The care and the loneliness wear her down. Clifford turns his grief into control, over the miners, the servants and his wife, whom he tries to keep from leaving the house. Wanting an heir, he suggests she take a lover for the sole purpose of becoming pregnant. Hilda, seeing how exhausted Connie is, hires a nurse, Mrs Bolton, to care for him.
Sent to check on the pheasant chicks, Connie meets the gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors, a reserved man who came back from the war to find that his wife had left him. They become lovers in his cottage, and his tenderness takes her by surprise. When she finds she is pregnant, she proposes a trip to Venice with Hilda, so that the child can be put down to the affair abroad that Clifford suggested. Oliver thinks she has used him; she tells him she wants only him. The man now living with Oliver's wife comes to the cottage for a share of his war pension, finds signs of Connie and spreads the story in the pub. Clifford dismisses Oliver just as Connie is leaving. She tells Clifford she loves Oliver and is carrying his child. He says he will never divorce her.
In Venice, the gossip follows her: a lady has given up everything for a gamekeeper. Months later, back in England, she receives a letter from Oliver. He has a job and a house in Scotland, and he asks her to come. She drives north, finds him, and they hold each other. The novel left its lovers still apart and waiting; the film lets them meet.
Starring
Emma Corrinas Connie, Lady Chatterley
A young wife bound to a paralysed, controlling husband, who finds with the estate's gamekeeper the tenderness her marriage has shut out.
Connie, Lady Chatterley’s story
Connie marries Sir Clifford Chatterley for what she calls his progressiveness, and a day later he is back at the front. He comes home paralysed and impotent, wants no one but her to care for him, refuses any other intimacy that might give her pleasure, and tries to keep her indoors. Worn down, she is sent to see the pheasant chicks and finds the gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors, and a tenderness she did not expect. Pregnant, she plans a trip to Venice so that the child can be put down to the affair Clifford once suggested, then tells him the truth: she loves Oliver and is carrying his child. He will not divorce her. Months later, tired of the gossip, she has a letter from Oliver, drives to Scotland and finds him.
Jack O'Connellas Oliver Mellors
The gamekeeper at Wragby, a reserved war veteran whose wife has left him, who becomes Connie's lover.
Oliver Mellors’s story
Oliver lives alone in the keeper's cottage at Wragby, raising pheasants and saying little. When Lady Chatterley comes to see the chicks, something passes between them at once, and in his cottage they become lovers; he is tender with her. When she tells him of her plan to go to Venice so that her pregnancy can pass for an affair abroad, he believes she has used him to get an heir; she tells him she wants only him. His wife's new partner, come for a share of his war pension, finds signs of Connie and spreads the story, and Clifford dismisses him. Months later, with a job and a house in Scotland, he writes asking her to come, and she finds him there.
Matthew Duckettas Sir Clifford Chatterley
Connie's husband, a baronet paralysed in the war, who turns his loss into control over everyone around him.
Sir Clifford Chatterley’s story
Connie marries Clifford, a baronet, for how progressive he seems, and he goes back to the war the day after the wedding night. He returns paralysed from the waist down and impotent. He will let no one but Connie tend him and refuses the other intimacy she offers, and as his grief hardens he grows set on power and money, harsh with the miners and the servants and with a wife he tries to keep indoors. Wanting an heir, he suggests she take a lover for the sole purpose of conceiving one. When the gossip about his gamekeeper reaches him, he dismisses Oliver as Connie is about to leave for Venice. She tells him she loves Oliver and is carrying his child, and he tells her he will never divorce her.
Joely Richardsonas Mrs Bolton
The nurse hired to care for Clifford, who later promises to spread word that Connie is looking for Oliver.
Faye Marsayas Hilda
Connie's elder sister, wary of the marriage from the start, who brings in a nurse to relieve her.
Why it matters
D. H. Lawrence's novel was tried twice for obscenity. In Japan the unexpurgated translation by Sei Ito was seized in 1950, and in 1957 the Supreme Court upheld the convictions; in Britain in 1960 a jury acquitted Penguin Books. What alarmed the courts was not only the sex but who was having it: a lady and a servant, and a woman choosing her own pleasure across the lines of class and marriage. Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre's film keeps its eye on Connie, on the exhaustion of caring for a husband who gives nothing back and on the gap between being wanted as the bearer of an heir and being wanted as herself. It also gives the lovers the reunion that Lawrence withheld. That choice says something about what a love story is now permitted to promise a woman who leaves.