‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ Review: Emma Corrin and Jack O’Connell Have an Affair to Remember
variety.comPeter Debruge Chief Film Critic These days, with rappers singing about “wet-ass pussy” and Ana de Armas simulating a presidential blow job in “Blonde,” it’s hard to imagine a world in which a couple four-letter words are enough to get a book banned.
In the case of D.H. Lawrence’s notorious 1928 novel “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” it was more than just the sex talk that riled the censors (the 1955 French film version was banned because it “promoted adultery”), although the book certainly seems tame by the standards of “Fifty Shades of Grey” and whatever gynecological surprises an un-Safe Google search might turn up.
How then to approach Lawrence’s controversial classic today, when audiences have seemingly seen it all, but still find themselves surfing for titillation on Netflix (judging by the streamer’s T&A-skewing Top 10 lists)?
In an admirable bid to make “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” at once respectable and arousing, French director Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre (“Mustang”) embraces the erotic nature of its source, while making it something you can still recommend to your mom, assuming she’s got nothing against a nude romp in the rain.
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