Subject: film review: Lolita (1997) Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1998 15:37:15 -0500 From: "B. S. Blair" Lolita (1997) ------------- At the Michigan Theatre this week check out also: the book earlier Stanley Kubrick version of the film This is a film worth seeing. Lolita is the story of a stepfather's profound sexual attraction for a 14-year-old girl (Lolita) that is becoming aware of her sexuality, part woman and part girl. The stepfather flails while trying to play father, and something more, to the girl. A playwright, Quilty, is also drawn to the girl's charm. People criticize the Kubrick version, calling it 'brittle', saying that this film is more sensitive and beautiful, which I would say is true, but the 1997 version also has its drawbacks: 1. I didn't buy Melanie Griffith in the role of the mother. I can buy her as trashy, loud, drunk, and stupid, trying to be classy but failing. But she isn't really fat, unattractive, or slovenly enough to be a cow. Her natural composure, grace, and charm came through enough to destroy my suspension of disbelief. The Kubrick version's casting I found a little more believable and the development better. 2. The Clare Quilty character wasn't developed enough. It was unclear why a 14-year-old girl would be attracted to an aging flabby guy with a small dick. Quilty was a little too dark and mysterious in this version and the use of smoke to portend his presence was a little cheesy and heavy-handed. The character development in the Kubrick version uses Quilty's sense of hedonism and spontaneity as a foil for the stifling possessiveness and jealousy of the stepfather. 3. This is a small point, but I'm not a big fan of so-called "comedy" relief, and I found the image of the senile old woman repeatedly waving on the porch redundant, not funny, and unnecessary. Good things about the film: 1. Beautiful images at the start of the film explain why a grown man might be strongly attracted to a 14-year-old girl in the first place without being a total creepozoid. Other images include when he first sees Lolita in the backyard under the sprinkler and her kissing him goodbye when she goes off to summer camp. An image that I liked in the Kubrick film was the stepfather painting Lolita's toenails. 2. Strong, brutal images portray a sense of destruction of all characters. Everyone in this film is deteriorating. Lolita learns to use the only tool that she feels is at her disposal, her sexuality, and becomes cruel and calculating in the process. The stepfather compromises himself by giving in to his sexual desires; and he drives Lolita from him with his possessiveness. Quilty's use of people like dishrags catches up with him in the form of revenge. --- From Current ragmag: Adrian Lyne's deeply felt, subtle adaptation of the Nabokov masterpiece is the best work of his career, and for its detail alone it shines theatrically in ways that weren't fully possible on Showtime. Lavishly produced, and acted with a great, tragicomic blend of ardor and conscience by Jeremy Irons, it improves upon Stanley Kubrick's more brittle 1962 version in innumerable ways, from the imaginative fidelity of Stephen Schiff's screenplay to the increased timeliness of its troubling themes. -Janet Maslin, New York Times