Review: Human Stain, The (2003)
Harvey S. Karten
Reviewed by: Harvey S. Karten
Grade: B+
Miramax Films/Lakeshore Entertainment
Directed by: Robert Benton
Written by: Nicholas Meyer, novel by Philip Roth
Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Ed Harris, Gary Sinise
Screened at: Broadway, NYC, 10/17/03
As one character in three-time Academy Award-winning
director Robert Benton's film states, sex is responsible for
getting people into a heap of trouble. If you don't know that yet,
you haven't seen or read "Agamemnon," "Medea," "The
Odyssey," "Macbeth," "Hamlet," you-name-it. In fact you
probably don't get out that much. From the ancient Greeks to
present-day America, sex is not only the cause of much
of humankind's woes but is, along with violence, what literature,
theater and movies are all about. "The Human Stain," based on
the novel by the great Philip Roth, is not about what showed up
on Monica's blue dress (see the first sentence above) but about
the imprint that people leave on the world. A generic title, in just
107 minutes "The Human Stain" covers themes like sex,
politics, race, class and morality, all neatly compressed by
scripter Nicholas Meyer (who fortuitously did away with some of
the book's subplots), and does this in a serious, engaging way
while giving Nicole Kidman the sexually hottest role of her
career to date.
Subtly evoking themes from Greek tragedies, Benton opens
on the violent death of his two major characters, both flawed
human beings, noting in a matter-of-fact way that the principal,
Coleman Silk (Anthony Hopkins) teaches Classics at Athena
College (actually filmed at Williams College in Massachusetts).
After 35 years' work there, which by force of personality he
invigorated from a backwater school to a prestigious institution,
he is called on the carpet on the specious charge of violating
political correctness, resigns in disgust, links up with a cleaning
woman half his age, Faunia (Nicole Kidman), and in the midst of
a hot affair tells his story to author Nathan Zuckerman (Gary
Sinise), who is living in seclusion in a remote cabin. Just one
important fact is left out: that though he appears lily-white and
speaks with a Welsh accent, he is in fact an African-American
who had decided early on to pass for Caucasian, given the
reality of segregation and limited opportunities for black men
and women during the forties and fifties.
Nicole Kidman presents Faunia as a product of her class, part
of a world that Coleman could never fully enter in much the way
that he would fail to feel at ease with his own identity as a black
man. We in the audience could feel his embarrassment in
trying to change her way of life. Taking her to a concert
featuring a Schubert quintet and whispering to her, "Isn't it
beautiful"? he's met by a vague smile. At a tony restaurant, the
type that Faunia would have seen only as a cleaning woman, he
makes her feel similarly uncomfortable. Introducing her without
advance warning to his author friend, Nathan, he renders her so
ill at ease that she bolts before the anticipated dinner can be
served.
Two major themes are explored here. One is Coleman's life
as a lie, as a man who refuses to identify with his race,
exasperating his father, who wants Coleman to go to Howard
University (a primarily black college), and his older brother who
warns him to stay away from the family. The other, the unusual
love between a now-retired professor in his mid-sixties and a
34-year-old chain-smoking, gum-chewing woman considerably
beneath him in social class. The young Coleman is well-played
in a debut performance by Wentworth Miller who refuses his
father's order to retire from boxing in order to preserve his
hands as a future doctor. Cinematographer Jean-Yves
Escoffier (who died six months before the opening of the film)
takes us into the boxing ring, dramatizing Coleman's hatred
toward his own race, which leads him to pummel a black boxer
in the first round against the orders by his manager to give the
audience at least a four-round show.
Coleman is a tragic figure, flawed by his unwillingness to
follow his family's perfectly rational advice to use his brain,
express pride in his identity and become a physician and, by
refusing his lawyer's suggestion to stay away from a woman
who comes from a different world, Coleman comes into conflict
with Faunia's ex-husband, Lester (Ed Harris), a man who is
shell-shocked from his Vietnam experience and who in one
instance beat his wife into a coma. We can understand
Faunia's desire to be cared for by a gentle man, one who is not
trailer trash, though we never quite know why she falls in love
with a gentleman three decades older than she.
The plot seamlessly meanders from 1998 to the early 1950's
and back several times. Photographed in Massachusetts,
Quebec and just outside Montreal, "The Human Stain" evokes a
credible and absorbing ambience while dramatically illustrating
novelist Philip Roth's antipathy for political correctness and
racial dishonesty.
Rated R. 107 minutes.(c) 2003 by Harvey Karten at
Harvey...@cs.com
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Steve Rhodes
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2003 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ***
Robert Benton's THE HUMAN STAIN, based on the Philip Roth novel, is a complex
story about Coleman Silk (Anthony Hopkins), a renowned classics professor at a
New England college. Near retirement age, he is fired for what is falsely
misconstrued as a racist remark, calling some students who have never shown up
for his class, "spooks." When they turn out to be black and complain, he is
summarily shown the door. This bit of political correctness run amok literally
kills his wife, who promptly has a heart attack upon hearing her husband was
forced out for such a flimsy reason.
The story takes place mainly after this incident, as the bored and retired
Coleman strikes up a friendship with a local writer, Nathan Zuckerman (Gary
Sinise). The scene with Hopkins and Sinise dancing together to the big band
sounds of "Dancing Cheek to Cheek" is one that won't soon be forgotten.
Thanks to the miracles of Viagra, which gets a great product plug, Coleman
starts seeing Faunia Farely (Nicole Kidman), a crazy woman who likes sex and
hates conversation. Although she grew up wealthy, she now lives a menial,
working class life with three jobs (postal employee, farm laborer and nighttime
janitor) with no money to show for her hard work. Nervous and smoking
incessantly, she has guilt written all over her face and a big secret to hide.
In one of his weakest performances, the normally sublime Ed Harris plays
Lester, Faunia's equally crazy and downright dangerous ex-husband.
When Faunia first asks Coleman to come to her room, he says no, then changes
his mind. Imagine saying no to the possibilities of sex with Kidman. I know.
It's hard to fathom. In her most memorable line, a dancing Faunia tells
Coleman, "I will do whatever you ask of me, as often as you want." She goes on
to say perceptively, "How many times have you heard a woman say that and mean
it?" No kidding.
The best part of the movie happens in flashback when we meet the young Coleman
Silk (Wentworth Miller), a man about to choose a college. This younger Coleman
is the movie's only completely satisfying and fully fleshed out character.
Miller, who really gave the part his all, was at our screening. He said that,
as research for his role, he rented as many of Hopkins's old movies as he could
find so that he could pick up little bits of Hopkins here and there to use in
his performance. There are some problems with the movie but none with Miller's
work, which is superb. The biggest problem with the picture is that too many
critics have decided to reveal the story's mysteries. But even if someone
tells you or you figure them out, the movie is still a rewarding one.
THE HUMAN STAIN runs 1:46. The film is rated R for "language and
sexuality/nudity" and would be acceptable for teenagers.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, October 31, 2003. In
the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century
theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
Web: http://www.InternetReviews.com
Email: Steve....@InternetReviews.com
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Susan Granger
It's easy to see why there were high Oscar hopes for this edgy romantic
thriller. Anthony Hopkins is Coleman Silk, a distinguished classics professor
and dean of faculty at a small New England college, who finds his personal and
professional life shattered when he, inadvertently, utters a racial slur.
Seething with rage, he barges into the life of a reclusive novelist (Gary
Sinese), imploring him to write about this injustice. Then Silk launches into a
passionate affair with an abused, illiterate young woman (Nicole Kidman) who
milks cows, sorts mail and works on the janitorial crew. When her crazed,
bitter ex-husband (Ed Harris) threatens them, Silk reveals a secret about his
family that he has harbored for his entire adult life.
Adapted by Nicholas Meyer from Philip Roth's award-winning novel, the
tragic morality tale is set against the politically-incorrect background of the
Clinton sex scandal. And race is used as a metaphor for the rejection of the
past, a theme that appears throughout Roth's body of work.
Director Robert Benton's off-beat casting backfires. Both Hopkins and
Kidman are ill-suited to their roles. While they depict the gentle May-December
romance superbly, it's disconcerting to see Hopkins' piercing blue eyes covered
by brown contact lenses and Kidman's beauty is far too delicate and
aristocratic. Although Wentworth Miller, who plays Silk as a young man, is
actually bi-racial, he lacks the necessary charisma - which dilutes all the
flashback sequences - although they're superbly photographed by Jean-Yves
Escoffier, who died several months ago. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10,
"The Human Stain" is an uneven, slow-paced, heavily secretive 7, and the title
refers to the indelible mark each individual makes on the world around us.
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