Lady Chatterley’s Lover Plot Synopsis
Directed by Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre and based on the 1928 novel by D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover is a romantic drama about Lady Constance Chatterley (Emma Corrin). When Connie’s husband Clifford (Matthew Duckett) returns from the front of World War I, he’s paralyzed from the waist down.
As Clifford becomes less focused on his wife’s needs and more involved in the exploitation of local coal miners, Connie enters into a love affair with gamekeeper Oliver Mellors (Jack O’Connell).
What happens to Clifford Chatterley in the war?
Lady Chatterley’s Lover begins with the marriage of Constance and Clifford Chafford in the middle of World War I. After the war, Clifford returns to Connie paralyzed from the waist down.
Connie moves from London to live with Clifford at the Wragby estate, near mining village Tevershall. She longs for affection from Clifford. But in addition to his paralysis making him unable to perform sexually, he is also cluelessly inattentive to Connie’s emotional needs.
Why does Connie fall out of love with Clifford?
Connie does love Clifford initially, but that affection gradually disappears. It begins with Clifford’s lack of touch and affection and grows as Connie’s husband concerns himself more with hyper-intellectualism than matters of the body and its needs. He expects Connie to run herself ragged taking care of him, until her sister Hilda (Faye Marsay) convinces him to hire Mrs. Bolton (Joely Richardson) as his official caregiver.
The distance between husband and wife turns to utter dislike on Connie’s part when Clifford heartlessly exploits local coal-miners and denies they have any humanity because of their low station.
Does Connie fall in love with Oliver Mellors?
Wanting an heir, Clifford one day tells Connie she should have sex with another man. He wants her to have a baby so they can pass the child off as their own. One of his stipulations is that she should not form any emotional connection with the man she chooses.
Connie finds herself attracted to Oliver Mellors, the gamekeeper. She starts taking long walks so she can run into him. When they begin their affair, Connie has to hide it from Clifford. She knows Oliver isn’t the “sort of man” he had in mind. She also knows she’s playing a dangerous game with her heart by choosing Oliver.
Eventually, the sexual attraction turns into love. As Connie falls out of love with Clifford, she falls in love with Oliver.
Does Connie become pregnant?
Connie does get pregnant, so she tells Oliver of Clifford’s plan to claim any child she has. She herself plans on making a trip to Venice with her family so Clifford will believe she had her affair there.
Oliver is angry with her for using him for a child. She insists she doesn’t want him for the sake of a child for Clifford. She just wants Oliver.
She wants to be with Oliver so much she’s going to try to make Clifford divorce her–and make him think it was his idea.
How does Clifford find out about Connie and Oliver?
Connie’s plan can’t come to fruition, because she and Oliver are found out.
For context, Oliver is married to a woman named Bertha. She has long been cheating on him, refuses to give him a divorce, and often sends her lover to collect part of Oliver’s military pension from him.
One day, Bertha’s lover enters Oliver’s cabin while he’s not there. When he finds Connie’s book there, he spreads a rumor through town that they are having an affair.
Clifford finds out, fires Oliver, and forces him to leave. Connie confesses everything to Clifford and asks for a divorce. He refuses to grant one.
How does Lady Chatterley’s Lover end? Do Connie and Oliver end up together?
Before Oliver leaves town, he promises Connie he will find her. Before Connie leaves, she asks Mrs. Bolton to keep her posted on any information she receives about Oliver’s whereabouts. “Because I love him,” she explains when Mrs. Bolton asks her why.
Connie goes to Venice with her family as planned. Eventually, a letter comes to her from Oliver. He writes that a story reached him from Tevershall about a lady who fell in love with a gamekeeper. He tells her he’s found a position and a home in Scotland.
Connie travels to Scotland, where she’s welcomed by Oliver with an embrace.
What is the message of Lady Chatterley’s Lover?
Lady Chatterley’s Lover is a love story, but it’s also (à la D. H. Lawrence himself) a critique of classism and industrialization.
In the film, Clifford is all about intellectualism and practicality. No decision he makes is about love, feeling, or consideration of others. And Lady Chatterley’s Lover is a condemnation of such ways of thinking.
In the end, Lady Chatterley gets her love story, and it defies class barriers while embracing the needs and wants of the body as equal to the mind.
Read More: Lady Chatterley’s Lover Movie Review