Cast: Jeremy Irons, Dominique Swain, Melanie Griffith, Frank Langella
Director: Adrian Lyne
Producers: Mario Kassar, Joel B. Michaels
Screenplay: Stephen Schiff based on the novel by Vladimir Nabokov
Cinematography: Howard Atherton
Music: Ennio Morricone
U.S. Distributor: The Samuel Goldwyn Company
In 1962, Stanley Kubrick decided that he wanted to make a motion picture version of Vladimir Nabokov's controversial, landmark novel, Lolita. Recognizing that a straightforward filming of the book would be ripped apart by the censors, Kubrick opted for a different approach. He brought in Nabokov to pen a screenplay that, while in some ways faithful to the general thrust of the writer's own novel, was more of a dark comedy than a meditation upon sexual deviancy and its dire consequences. The result was the surprisingly tame 1962 movie, which worked by intimation instead of depiction.
In the last 35 years, much has changed, but much has also remained the same. Adrian Lyne's Lolita is a case in point. This is a stately, non-gratuitous adaptation of the novel. It does not titillate or exploit; the only scenes of a nude girl are shadowy and indistinct. Despite that, the subject matter alone – pedophilia – was enough to scare off nearly every major American distributor. Lolita has been in the can for over a year. It has been shown all across Europe. Yet, because of the hypocritical, puritanical fear of the U.S. motion picture industry, interested viewers in this country wondered if they would ever be given an opportunity to see the film. Finally, the cable network Showtime bought the rights and debuted the movie on TV. Around the same time, The Samuel Goldwyn Company coughed up enough money for a limited theatrical run, so, much delayed, Lolita is finally being shown in America the way the rest of the world has already seen it.
In many ways, the concept underlying Lolita is more provocative than the actual material, which tends to be a bit long-winded. This is more the fault of the book than of Lyne's approach. The director, who is best known for such overwrought fare as Fatal Attraction and Indecent Proposal, turns in a surprisingly restrained effort that is more faithful to its source material than Nabokov's own 1962 script was. This is Lolita for the purist – an occasionally sardonic but mostly dramatic examination of a pedophile's life and impulses. By turns, it's funny, sad, and disturbing.
The pedophile is Humbert Humbert, brought to life by Jeremy Irons, an actor who enjoys playing deranged characters, and who is no stranger to bringing out a man's struggle with his inner demons (he won an Oscar for his portrayal of Claus von Bülow in 1990's Reversal of Fortune). Humbert is not presented as a soulless monster or an evil predator, as most motion picture pedophiles are. Instead, Lolita attempts to understand Humbert, and allows us to sympathize with him without condoning his actions. He may be a deviant, but he is still a man. He recognizes that his obsession is unhealthy, but he cannot stop himself. Indeed, in the film's prologue, he calls Lolita the "light of my life, fire of my loins, my sin, my soul." Heedless of the fact that he is destroying three lives, he plunges on recklessly, letting an infatuation develop into a taboo physical relationship.
Dolores "Lolita" Haze (Dominique Swain) is the "nymphet" who becomes the object of Humbert's desire. At the tender age of 14, she's a character of contradictions – vixen and virgin at the same time. It's clear from the beginning that she knows the effect she's having on Humbert, and revels in the way a flash of her legs or the touch of a bare foot on his skin arouses him. Yet, despite her apparent sexual maturity, she's still a child in many ways, and, by responding to her teasing, Humbert turns her into a schemer and a whore. Their relationship is nominally consensual, but, in considering the appropriateness of this coupling, one must ask the question of when the age of consent should be for a sexual liaison. At 14, Lolita is clearly not fully developed emotionally or physically, and, by courting her seduction, Humbert is effectively stealing away the latter years of her adolescence.
Humbert first meets Lolita in 1947, after he travels across the Atlantic to New England, where he's to become a college professor. While lodging in the house of Charlotte Haze (Melanie Griffith), he falls for her daughter, whom he sees as a substitute for a lost love of his youth. Eventually, Humbert marries Charlotte to avoid losing Lolita, but his new wife finds out about his illicit desires. Before she can confront her daughter, however, she is killed in a car accident, and Humbert finds himself as Lolita's guardian. Together, the two begin a road trip that takes them to random destinations across America. As they travel, their relationship develops from playful to sexual to strained. Then another man, a sinister pedophile named Clare Quilty (Frank Langella), enters the picture, and, like a more powerful magnet, draws Lolita away from Humbert. It is a rejection he cannot endure.
Jeremy Irons essays a sympathetic Humbert; he makes the character pathetic, needy, and strangely likable. Although we know redemption for the doomed Humbert is impossible, that doesn't stop us from wishing for it. Likewise, newcomer Dominique Swain (who would go on to play John Travolta's daughter in Face/Off) is excellent in the title role. Swain understands the delicate balance between seductress and victim. She's at her best when she's being sassy; Lolita has some acid one-liners. Frank Langella, as has become his style, is a perfectly creepy villain. Sadly, Melanie Griffith doesn't hold up her end. She's stiff and unconvincing, and the words don't roll off her tongue easily. The film gets a tremendous lift when Charlotte is killed because we no longer have to endure Griffith's presence.
Griffith's ineptitude aside, Lolita is at its best at the beginning and in the middle, as the relationship between Humbert and Lolita gradually builds and shifts. Once things start on a downward spiral, however, the movie is in danger of becoming repetitive. Nevertheless, the material never loses its hold upon our attention. Those venturing into a theater showing this film with the hope of seeing something salacious will come away disappointed. Lolita is not a sex film; it's about characters, relationships, and the consequences of imprudent actions. And those who seek to brand the picture as immoral have missed the point. Both Humbert and Lolita are eventually destroyed – what could be more moral? The only real controversy I can see surrounding this film is why there was ever a controversy in the first place.
© 1998 James Berardinelli