The racy series was based on a controversial novel
A period drama that will leave audiences hot under the collar is streaming now, after fans have enjoyed one drama deemed “sublime” and another hailed the “alternative Austen”.
The BBC series is just one of many adaptations of a novel that was banned due to the social mores of the time.
However, this version has been praised by many viewers for capturing the spirit of the book.
One 10/10 review on IMDb read: “A truly masterful performance for all involved. I did not even know this existed until recently and I sat to watch it in one sitting.”
Another person praised the show’s aesthetics in their review: “An excellent work of art in a long and expertly made movie. Being almost totally visual, I must admit I’m carried away by visually beautiful movies, and this one is tops.”
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A third person titled their review: “A beautiful, complicated love story I enjoyed” and explained: “This movie was very enjoyable as well as instructive.
“It was enjoyable because it was so faithful to the most popular version of the story and instructive about how people conducted their lives after WW1 in England.”
Lady Chatterley came out in 1993, and charted the passionate affair between an upper-class woman, Constance Chatterley (played by Joely Richardson) and her working-class groundskeeper, Oliver Mellors (Sean Bean).
Constance and Mellors initially had an arrangement whereby she would fall pregnant and claim the child was her injured WWI veteran husband Sir Clifford Chatterley’s (James Wilby) child.
However, the agreement quickly gave way to feelings between Constance and Mellors, with their affair marking a sexual and spiritual awakening for her.
The show has won praise for its depiction of the novel and also leading man Bean.
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One person commented on IMDb: “This is the definitive Lady Chatterley’s Lover” and the noted: “After having seen all the film adaptations of Lady Chatterley’s Lover 1981 onwards, in my opinion none of them can hold a candle to (this) Ken Russell’s version. It has beauty, poetry, squalor and vision.”
Another audience member urged viewers to watch Lady Chatterley for Bean and said the series “belongs” to him, “who gets his teeth in and doesn’t let go”.
Someone else commented: “Sean Bean Amazes Yet Again” and elaborated: “I have followed his career since seeing the Sharpe’s episodes and in everything he is in, he takes the part and makes it his own. A simply wonderful effort and a beautifully touching love story.”
The four-part series was adapted from D.H. Lawrence’s 1928 novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which was banned in the UK, America, Australia, India, Japan, and other countries for obscenity.
It wasn’t until 1960 with the outcome of the British obscenity trial R v Penguin Books Ltd that people in the UK were finally able to read the novel. Unsurprisingly, the book quickly became a bestseller after its lengthy censorship.
The novel had been banned in Britain after it was deemed indecent and immoral due to its sexual content and explicit language.
Lady Chatterley’s Lover also featured an inter-class romance, which was taboo at the time given Britain’s rigid social structure, not to mention featuring an extramarital affair.
The novel has been published privately in the late 1920s in France and Italy, the BBC reported, but was censored by others after this.
Lady Chatterley (1993) is streaming on Prime Video for a fee