Quiet yet beautiful – and there’s plenty of sex: Lady Chatterley’s Lover reviewed

If you’re of my generation, I expect your first encounter with D.H Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover was the (well-thumbed) book passed around school and then maybe Ken Russell’s full-frontal, hut-shaking, 1993 television adaptation starring Joely Richardson and Sean Bean at his most Sean Bean. (‘I wan’ yer, m’lady.’) But this Netflix version doesn’t play it as high-toned smut or as a pop-culture joke. It’s more in keeping with Lawrence’s alternative title for the novel, Tenderness, and it’s more a gentle, affecting, immersive love story than a sex story although there is plenty of sex in it. You’re not about to be short-changed there, m’lady.

The film is directed by Laure de Cleremont-Tonnerre (The Mustang) and stars Emma Corrin as Constance. Corrin first made a splash as Princess Diana in The Crown and she isn’t obvious casting, but she’s wonderful.