Lady Chatterley (NR, 2007)

With her husband, Lord Clifford Chatterley (Hippolyte Girardot), crippled from a war injury, Lady Constance (Marina Hands) spends her time caring for him and running their enormous household. The repetitive days are sapping her life away until she takes a walk in the woods to talk to the gamekeeper, Oliver Parkin (Jean-Louis Coulloc'h). Soon, Constance and Parkin begin spending time together outside his work cabin -- she, the lady of the estate, reconnecting with the outdoors, and he, the employee, keeping out of her way. But it's only a matter of time before they consummate their growing attraction in a scene so untamed it jolts her to life.

It would be much too easy to classify writer-director Pascale Ferran's LADY CHATTERLEY as pure titillation. After all, it's based on D.H. Lawrence's scandalous novel (the version titled John Thomas and Lady Jane, anyway), and yes, there's plenty of sex and nudity. But to do so would be a disservice both to Lawrence and to the able Ferran; the film didn't win scores of Cesars (France's version of the Oscars) for nothing. In less skillful and respectful hands, Lady Chatterley (in French with English subtitles) could have easily devolved into a soft-porn vehicle masquerading as intelligent cinema.

The movie isn't without shortcomings, however: The textual transitions -- basically explanation in plain white letters printed against a black background -- are clunky (though they do move the action quite a bit). And while dreamy indolence seems apt for a re-telling of the Lawrence classic, Ferran overdoes it. With too many scenes feeling overly portentous (black clouds roiling overhead, too-verdant fields glistening under the sun, dew dripping from flowers) it becomes not just languorous but downright slow.