Possible Spoilers below . . .
You can more or less take it for granted that films adapted from literary novels will be disappointing to those who've already read the book, particularly when the novel in question is more about the intricacies of language and character than about plot or visual imagery. Personally, I tend to be able to enjoy reading a novel for the first time after I've seen the film it was adapted from, and I would hope that this thoughtful but ultimately fragmented film will encourage some viewers to pick up Philip Roth's novel, which is arguably the best of his career and the most succinct, biting critique of the New Puritanism of the 1990s, capturing broad aspects of some of the more troubling and contradictory characteristics of American life and history at the end of the 20th century.
There's much to like about 'The Human Stain': it's filmed subtly and with a strong sense of place, lingering on the frozen, dimly-lit environment of the Berkshires in winter. The screenplay manages to integrate more of Roth's vision than should reasonably have been expected, though the effort to do so makes the story seem rushed and too tightly compressed. Several of the performances are superb, particularly Wentworth Miller as the young Coleman Silk and Ed Harris as the psychotic Vietnam vet Lester Farley. Anna Deavere Smith and Harry Lennix are also excellent as Coleman's parents, making the most out of very little screen-time to convey the conflict between Coleman's ambitions and his sense of self and family.
Anthony Hopkins, as brilliant as he may be, may not have been the best choice for Coleman Silk; his performance in many ways is saved by another actor, Wentworth Miller, whose superb parroting of Hopkins' voice and mannerisms establishes a scant degree of plausibility for Hopkins' adult incarnation of Coleman. Surely there were better options--Dustin Hoffman, Richard Dreyfuss, James Caan--actors who would at least be believable as Jewish if not as light-skinned African-American. Hopkins fares well enough--he masterfully carries one of the book's best scenes, when Coleman dances with Zuckerman--but Hopkins never really convinces us that he could be Coleman.
Gary Sinise is adequate as Zuckerman, and manages to convey the character's withdrawn, contemplative nature well. The film chooses to recast Zuckerman as middle-aged (in the novel, Zuckerman is roughly the same age as Silk), presumably to afford for a sub-plot in which Silk's friendship with Zuckerman draws the younger man out of isolation and melancholy--a bit of an unnecessary Hollywood touch, and inappropriate to the context.
The real flop here is Nicole Kidman as Faunia Farley. Any number of contemporary actresses could have made much more of this superb role--Cate Blanchett leaps to mind; other better choices include Emily Watson and Laura Linney. Kidman can be fabulous when properly cast, but her reading of Faunia is tone-deaf, unbelievable, and unsympathetic. It's not that she's too pretty or too refined--Faunia is meant to be sexually alluring, and Kidman's fine features aren't inappropriate to the character, who ran away as a girl from a wealthy family. But here her gestures and dialogue are caricaturish to the point of parody. You never sense the spark between Faunia and Coleman that is so essential to the novel.
Otherwise, the problems mostly reside in the effort to compress too much information into a 100-minute film. Director Robert Benton is intent on showing us as much of Coleman's intricate backstory as possible, but the effect of this reduces our ability to understand his various dilemmas. We don't see his painful process towards deciding to pass himself off as white; a crucial subplot in which Coleman's nemesis at the university harasses him for his affair with Faunia is introduced but then abandoned; little to none of the rich detail that must have fueled Ed Harris' rendering of Farley makes it from page to screen, begging me to wonder why Benton didn't give us another ten- or twenty minutes worth of movie to even out the tone and fill in some of the grey spaces.
This movie is a good sketch of a brilliant book. Taken together, they're a rich experience. But if you're only going to have one or the other, read the book.
You can more or less take it for granted that films adapted from literary novels will be disappointing to those who've already read the book, particularly when the novel in question is more about the intricacies of language and character than about plot or visual imagery. Personally, I tend to be able to enjoy reading a novel for the first time after I've seen the film it was adapted from, and I would hope that this thoughtful but ultimately fragmented film will encourage some viewers to pick up Philip Roth's novel, which is arguably the best of his career and the most succinct, biting critique of the New Puritanism of the 1990s, capturing broad aspects of some of the more troubling and contradictory characteristics of American life and history at the end of the 20th century.
There's much to like about 'The Human Stain': it's filmed subtly and with a strong sense of place, lingering on the frozen, dimly-lit environment of the Berkshires in winter. The screenplay manages to integrate more of Roth's vision than should reasonably have been expected, though the effort to do so makes the story seem rushed and too tightly compressed. Several of the performances are superb, particularly Wentworth Miller as the young Coleman Silk and Ed Harris as the psychotic Vietnam vet Lester Farley. Anna Deavere Smith and Harry Lennix are also excellent as Coleman's parents, making the most out of very little screen-time to convey the conflict between Coleman's ambitions and his sense of self and family.
Anthony Hopkins, as brilliant as he may be, may not have been the best choice for Coleman Silk; his performance in many ways is saved by another actor, Wentworth Miller, whose superb parroting of Hopkins' voice and mannerisms establishes a scant degree of plausibility for Hopkins' adult incarnation of Coleman. Surely there were better options--Dustin Hoffman, Richard Dreyfuss, James Caan--actors who would at least be believable as Jewish if not as light-skinned African-American. Hopkins fares well enough--he masterfully carries one of the book's best scenes, when Coleman dances with Zuckerman--but Hopkins never really convinces us that he could be Coleman.
Gary Sinise is adequate as Zuckerman, and manages to convey the character's withdrawn, contemplative nature well. The film chooses to recast Zuckerman as middle-aged (in the novel, Zuckerman is roughly the same age as Silk), presumably to afford for a sub-plot in which Silk's friendship with Zuckerman draws the younger man out of isolation and melancholy--a bit of an unnecessary Hollywood touch, and inappropriate to the context.
The real flop here is Nicole Kidman as Faunia Farley. Any number of contemporary actresses could have made much more of this superb role--Cate Blanchett leaps to mind; other better choices include Emily Watson and Laura Linney. Kidman can be fabulous when properly cast, but her reading of Faunia is tone-deaf, unbelievable, and unsympathetic. It's not that she's too pretty or too refined--Faunia is meant to be sexually alluring, and Kidman's fine features aren't inappropriate to the character, who ran away as a girl from a wealthy family. But here her gestures and dialogue are caricaturish to the point of parody. You never sense the spark between Faunia and Coleman that is so essential to the novel.
Otherwise, the problems mostly reside in the effort to compress too much information into a 100-minute film. Director Robert Benton is intent on showing us as much of Coleman's intricate backstory as possible, but the effect of this reduces our ability to understand his various dilemmas. We don't see his painful process towards deciding to pass himself off as white; a crucial subplot in which Coleman's nemesis at the university harasses him for his affair with Faunia is introduced but then abandoned; little to none of the rich detail that must have fueled Ed Harris' rendering of Farley makes it from page to screen, begging me to wonder why Benton didn't give us another ten- or twenty minutes worth of movie to even out the tone and fill in some of the grey spaces.
This movie is a good sketch of a brilliant book. Taken together, they're a rich experience. But if you're only going to have one or the other, read the book.