Lolita

Briefly put, this film is a quite brilliant adaptation of the novel. While staying pretty faithful to the original source, Stephen Schiff's screenplay fleshes out the primary characters and their relationship, which plays out as a taboo but reserved love story. Maintaining the central themes, the plot is reduced to the essence of the major players and the linear events of the book. It's almost impossible to adapt a long book into the confines of a single average-length movie, but Schiff captures most of the important moments quite well and humanizes the characters who could have come off as bizarre depictions from Humbert's narrative.

Lyne's movie is at once haunting, compelling, and beautifully photographed. For all the controversy, it is a mature, reflective, and subtle film. "Lolita" is a challenging piece of work that sublimely reflects the pathos of the story and manages to retain bits of the complex humor of Nabokov. This "Lolita" abandons the notion of being a complete social satire and works as an essentially dramatic portrayal of a doomed, inappropriate romance that is ultimately a sad, tragic tale.

The performances are remarkable, especially those of Jeremy Irons and Dominique Swain. Irons is utterly perfect as the ill-fated wretch, Humbert Humbert. So understated but evocative with every move and gesture, he is the definitive Old-World European whose obsession bristles beneath his timorous demeanor. He evokes an incredible amount of sympathy for the character. Swain delivers an on-target portrayal of the flowering nymphet who toys with her burgeoning sexuality but hasn't overcome her fundamental brattiness. Swain elicits both allure and pity as the wayward character whose immaturity in mindset and behavior does not excuse her complicity in her affairs. Despite what some critics may have written, Melanie Griffith is fine in the small role as Lolita's overbearing mother. She is comically obtuse, and her veneer hits all the right, grating notes. Frank Langella rounds out the cast as the mysterious Quilty. He is appropriately shady, vague, and sinister when he appears from time to time, slowly revealing himself.

This is a real winner on many levels and should be up for several awards including best picture, director, actor, actress, and adapted screenplay. Showtime should be congratulated for its smart acquisition. I hope the movie finds its way to the largest possible audience.

Having read the book and watched the 1962 version some years back, now watching the 1997 version completes my own Lolita experience. This one also pretty well follows the novel but of course some things just are inappropriate to include. Lolita is a brat, sassy, pretty, flirty, manipulative, but Humbert is obsessed. Near the end, before his final encounter with Quilty he goes on about loving Lolita, but what he had was not love, it was carnal obsession. It wrecked him I suppose in the same way that many men have been wrecked over the history of the world.

Many key scenes were filmed in and near New Orleans. Near the middle of the movie is a scene at Pirate's Alley, the narrow pedestrian alley between the Cabildo and the St Louis Cathedral. That is where one of our fun runs in the 1980s finished up.

I found it on Amazon streaming movies. A very good movie of a difficult subject.

I implore you to read the book before watching the movie, and then you'll understand that it isn't glorifying anything. Yes the movie's aesthetic is beautiful. There are nice shots of the US and Lolita's style is pretty. But the story is nothing short of sick. Humbert is not meant to be the hero. He is an insanely sick and twisted. The author mocks him many times in the book. The story is told from his perspective which is interesting, but he is not a trustworthy narrator. He justifies his actions when in reality we see how they start to pile up on him and not work out in his favour. He is selfishly trying to pursue a fantasy, and putting adult expectations on a literal child. Lolita is manipulative, but she never stood a chance. She was failed by the adults around her. And she was dealing with a lot. Her father is nowhere to be found and we see how Humbert inserts himself into that role to abuse her. The aftermath of the characters, revealed right before the credits, is tragic. The actors delivered amazingly. And the poetic writing from the book is used throughout. This is a messed up story told from the perspective of a pathetic individual, but has elements of dark humour. We can see we are not supposed to root for Humbert. I think it was a great adaptation of the book.

I never read Nabokov's novel nor did I watch Kubrick's Lolita, but I liked this one - yes, my feelings sometimes were ambivalent regarding some scenes, but well, I guess that was Nabokov's aim and that of the director. Production is excellent, acting too. A good one that questions in its best moments our perception of reality and our moral values.

When the 1997 version of Lolita was widely censored in the US, many asked why the reaction was so strong to this film. After all, the novel was published in the US in 1958, Kubrick's film version appeared in 1962, and we hear more shocking tales of sexual depravity every day on the daytime talk shows. But after seeing Lyne's brilliant version of Lolita, I can see how he manages to breathe fresh controversy into this familiar story. Lyne's lascivious lens eroticizes Lolita's every movement and pose. The viewer is forced to see her through the eyes of Humbert and to feel his obsession and desire. We are co-conspirators in his crime, and at the end we share his shame. Rather than shocking us (and having us pull away in revulsion), Lyne draws us in and makes us face the Humbert in ourselves. This is an incredibly powerful film.