Human Stain, The
Catch it on HBO
It is difficult to discuss the crux of this film without revealing a major plot point. If you are as ignorant of the key issue of this film, it may come as much of a surprise to you mid-movie as it did to me. The ineffectiveness of setting this premise up to be believable and the other elements of the film that only serve to distract from that interesting story line, make this movie a failure in my eyes, despite the aspects of it that are actually very finely crafted. It was carefully wrought but still comes off unsatisfying and clumsy. No mean feat.
Adapted from the novel of the same title by Philip Roth, The Human Stain superficially is about people's impressions of each other versus their inner truths. The action in Mr. Roth's book centers on Coleman Silk (Anthony Hopkins), a revered and controversial classics professor who retires into an abrupt widowhood after he is accused of making a racist remark in class. The Achilles heel of his career is the secret that prevents this remark from being understood properly, considering the source. The film is about passing, not just passing for something other than what you really are, but passing out of your realness into someone else's idea of who you are or who you should be. It's even about passing away, as in dying, in the eyes of those who love you. With all these heady themes, and with such powerhouse actors on deck to portray everyone, why did this movie leave me cold? I'll tell you.
Hopkins seems well-cast as an ivy-league tenured prof, with his gentle measured voice and steady English manner, until we meet his young self, infinitely more colorful and American and suddenly we think, how did Silk turn into this Knight of the Realm? The most intriguing parts of the movie for me were the flashbacks into Coleman Silk's college days, where he was played by Wentworth Miller, a much more apt physical casting of a man who is one or both of the two most derided ethnic minorities in the world. Miller is fantastic and compelling and he sucked me into the story even right after Kidman had kicked me out. Chronologically the story unfolds in Silk's college days and his current retirement days, with the obligatory hook of showing the end of the movie as the first scene to make you go, "How did we get here?" But big chunks of character and story did not make it into this adaptation and the result is a mish mash of Acting! and backstory.
Into Silk's life barges a woman, Fornia (Nicole Kidman) who practically jumps in his lap and yet constantly pushes him away. Kidman is inherently an ice goddess and despite her amazing American accent and attitude and her determination to seem "low rent" she just cannot embody this creature in a way that works for this film. As a result, her palpable screen presence dominates her scenes, instead of what she is saying. In addition, her dialogue is crazy and random and cryptic and actually quite annoying. She drives her scenes into a tree with her gruff declarations of craziness. She is a bundle of rage and issues with no respite, no growth, no change. What besides her lyric beauty would attract an educated and sensitive man such as Silk? The film bogged down every time she was on screen. I have not read the novel but I am led to understand that certain characters (such as those played by Sinise and Harris) carry a very different weight on paper and I wonder if they would have balanced Kidman's character's crazy randomness better.
Fornia's crazy 'Nam vet husband (or ex-husband, it's unclear) is played by Dennis Hopper, I'm sorry, Ed Harris doing a perfect Dennis Hopper impression. Silk's best friend Nathan (who he met by barging into his house and forcing him to be his friend, not unlike Fornia's seduction of himself) is played by Gary Sinise. All the scenes with Nathan seem to have been meant to be profound and instead end up feeling very "this will look great in an Oscar montage some day." I understand Nathan is supposed to be more pivotal in Silk's journey in this story, but instead he feels tacked on.
I am sorry that my refusal to publish spoilers prevents me from stating the obvious problem with this movie, but I hope that if you do choose to see it, you will not spend too much money on it. Wentworth Miller is the best part.
-- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ These reviews (c) 2003 Karina Montgomery. Please feel free to forward but credit the reviewer in the text. Thanks. You can check out previous reviews at: http://www.cinerina.com and http://ofcs.rottentomatoes.com - the Online Film Critics Society http://www.hsbr.net/reviews/karina/listing.hsbr - Hollywood Stock Exchange Brokerage Resource
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