Literary cinema at its most numbingly loquacious, most crampedly illustrational. Because the D.H. Lawrence novel is autobiographical, you get not just a piece of literature by him, but him himself -- under the pseudonym of Richard Somers, and in the form of Colin Friels, looking as much like Lawrence as he can, or as much like him as Alan Bates could have either. From the modern view of things, the Lawrence character is somewhat shown up by his common-sensical wife, just as Friels is shown up by his wife, the superb Judy Davis. Directed by Tim Burstall. (1987) — Duncan Shepherd