Customer Reviews

The Human Stain

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(31)
3 star:		(19)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Benton (of "Kramer vs. Kramer" or "Places in the Heart" acclaim) has always made movies with themes on the subtlest emotional vectors.

If you've read the marvellous but somewhat un-adaptable book by the same name (Phillip Roth's "The Human Stain") you'll know what I am talking about and in that case, watch the movie without any expectations of seeing a loyal adaptation because this isn't.

If you are not familiar with Roth's book, the movie's spinal theme may be racial prejudice, but it is really the story of a man deciding, late in life, to love the unknown what is beyond books, pride, even self. To learn that lesson is to turn a stain into a blessing.

Stylistically, I felt the theme could have been dealt with in a somewhat smarter way. Without giving too much away, the "scandal" at the heart of the movie really gets very little screen time which helps diminish its importance in comparison with Coleman's past. But we see so little of it that it belittles its own thematic importance, and the movie spends a great deal of energy setting up storylines and elements that get little eventual payoff.

This is why I say the novel was a bit difficult to adapt. Following Coleman's life all the way along, not just its beginning and end, could have made the movie work better as a movie; so could exposing his secret to the world of the film instead of just to the audience. At one point, Coleman's sister says doing just that would have instantly cleared up all the scandal and misunderstanding. Wrong. It would have made everything much more complicated, much more textured, much less black-and-white. As it is, we are left with a movie about two people whose lives have already ended clinging to each other for comfort.

But the cast alone is something I'd go rushing into the theatres for: Hopkins, Kidman, Harris. Hopkins' acting here is a slow, painful flowering, and Kidman, who late in the film has a long dialog delivered with such musical delicacy that it becomes an aria of regret and self-apprehension.

In sum, despite my gripes with the handling of the film, this is a film you HAVE to see. I'll go as far as to say that it's worth owning a DVD of.

Phillip Roth's final tale in his trilogy, "The Human Stain" is set in the summer of The Year Of Our Lord, 1998. Otherwise known as "Impeachment Summer", during which the Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky accusations took place, The Starr Report was released, and the whole sordid story of the infamous stained dress was on the lips of everyone, so to speak.

The film is told in flashback sequences with the narrator of the tale, writer and friend of main character, Coleman Silk's. His name is Nathan Zuckerman (a fabulous Gary Sinese). Incidentally, the character of Nathan Zuckerman is the author, Phillip Roth's alter-ego and is throughout the trilogy of novels.

Coleman Silk, played adeptly by Sir Anthony Hopkins, is a 71 year-old college professor at small New England Athena College. Coleman is wrongfully accused of racial slurs against a couple of absent pupils and loses his tenured position. This shocking news sends his beloved wife into sickness and before long, she succumbs...

If only his family, friends and all the people that Coleman Silk has touched throughout their lives knew the REAL story, such charges would have never been brought about in the first place.

Silk gets lonely and depressed quite quickly, finds the wonderful drug just produced by the name of Viagra and meets the illiterate but beautiful school janitor, Faunia Farley, played by Nicole Kidman. Faunia might be illiterate but she has graduated with honors from "The School Of Hard Knocks", both figuratively and literally by her Vietnam vet abusive husband Lester, played excellently by Ed Harris. Coleman and Faunia have a torrid affair with the whole New England town buzzing about the goings on. As they get closer and share with one another, Faunia's past is almost as shocking as Coleman's. In the final scenes of the film, all secrets are exposed...

Many critics said that the movie script itself was a masterpiece but it was grossly miscast with Hopkins and Kidman in the main roles. I disagree only because there are very few actors that could genuinely and convincingly portray the characters, let alone, carry a heavy drama such as this. The only actor that I could come up with for a recast on Coleman would be Frank Langella, in part because the physical characteristics of Coleman could have been a bit more believable to the viewer.

I must also mention the two actors who play an integral role in the flashback sequences of Coleman's youth. A terrific Wentworth Miller as Young Coleman Silk and an adequate Jacinda Barrett (from MTV's Real World London Cast) in a nice turn as young Coleman's college days lover, Steena Paulsson.

Once watching the movie, you will understand the many significant meanings of the title, "The Human Stain". Not only the stain of the original sin into which all of us are born, but the stain of hate, hurt, pain, racism, pacifism and yes, even love and death.

I highly recommend "The Human Stain" despite it's theatrical release mixed reviews and unfortunate lackluster box office draw.

Happy Watching!

This is a film that is a masterpiece not only for what it says but in the way it says it.

We have a man who looks white but is black, pretends to be a Jew, and lives a life of deception. We have a woman with a background that gives her every advantage but she is destroyed because she was molested as a child due to her ravishing beauty. At the very moment when these two finally find peace in each other's arms they are wiped out by the insanity of evil.

Coleman's story unfolds in a series of perplexing flashbacks that leaves the viewer confounded until we finally discover that Coleman Silk and the black boxer are one and the same. Faunia's story is equally confusing. It is unreasonable that this utterly gorgeous young woman is so casually willing to give herself sexually to a rejected Viagra dependant old man. Why is she merely scraping out a living for herself sweeping floors and feeding cattle when you sense that she has so much more to offer? What horror has brought her to this state of despair? As her story unfolds in her final soliloquy with a caged crow we find that she is so haunted by the blame she feels for the accidental death of her children, while she was distracted with a lover, that she is suicidal, emotionally detached, and devastated.

Into this mix vengeance pursues Faunia in the form of her ex-husband, a tortured Viet Nam vet for whom killing has become a casual exercise. Lester Farley is a clever mixture of blind fate and conscious hate that only the writer, Zuckerman, ultimately understands and reveals to the world.

What makes this film so artfully intriguing is the way the story unfolds in its seemingly chaotic fashion reflecting the chaos of the human condition the film is describing, and it is a story that is hard to take because it rings so heartbreakingly true. The acting by the principals, Hopkins, Kidman, Sinise, Harris,and Miller is utterly outstanding in every way, and the film deserves repeated viewings from that standpoint alone. As for the story itself, it takes a couple of viewings with patience and reflection to fully appreciate its authentic depths. Finally, in an ironic way, one might take comfort from Coleman's and Faunia's deaths that the moment at which they died was the moment at which they had reached fulfillment with each other.

So much of movie watching has to do with the hype, and therefore, expectations, surrounding a film. Since I had not heard much of this movie, I was surprised to find such an all star ensemble in an unheralded film. So I had the pleasure of simply watching it with no expectations, no book to compare it with, etc. The result was a compelling story of twisted lives coming to grips with themselves and their pasts. Nicole Kidman has to be one of the greatest actors of our generation, since she plays her white trailer trash role to perfection, accent and all. Anthony Hopkins use of subtle expression and understatement add tension and depth to the film. If you like complex, interwoven stories with good characters, you will like this film.

From the other source, this film had a relatively low review, but I think it is a good film.

What this film makes great is the great story. I have not read the book, but I am sure it is as good as this film or even better.

The story itself is very sad but written so beautifully that its beauty can over-ride the sadness. The past scenes and present ones appear quite often in the way that reveal and unwind the secret. It is a drama, but I think this is more than that. It is a literature - a work of art... I am talking about the story now.

I am happy with the music and photography of the film. Also I find the acting great. The voice of Coleman's young lover sounded like it was always directly from a microphone, and I like the effect because it suites the way she speaks and also describes how this lady's existance sinks into Coleman's mind as though she was a nutrition he was missing so long.

The story is a miserable one, but which great literature does not contain a misery anyway?

THE HUMAN STAIN, from a novel by Philip Roth, is a handsomely produced independent film that strives hard to be a serious study of the effect racial prejudice has on an educated college professor (Anthony Hopkins) who retires when he is accused of using the word "spooks" to cover two of his students who have never showed up for class. In the course of the story, we learn that he himself is a black man passing for white and dealing with a secret he's kept in the dark for most of his life. It has an odd way of telling the story with frequent intervening and overlapping flashbacks that are sometimes hard to follow. Even odder is the casting of Anthony Hopkins as a black man who looks white.

When he meets Nicole Kidman, we have two lost souls. She's running from her past, blaming herself for the accidental death of two children and running from a crazed ex-husband (Ed Harris) who threatens to break up her improbable relationship with the college professor. Kidman tackles a role beyond her scope as a trailer trash type who makes her living as a custodian cleaning up other people's messes. She is never convincing and makes the unappealing character both annoying and absurd, and has absolutely no chemistry with Hopkins. That he would be so attracted to her is highly improbable, given her sudden outbursts of insults and deep rooted anger.

Ed Harris and Gary Sinise do well in underdeveloped roles and both have some very valid moments where they seem like real people instead of contrived characters. Too bad they don't play a greater part in the story.

Production-wise, it's handsomely photographed in rugged winter settings but "the message" fails to get its points across with any subtlety. Wentworth Miller is appealing as the younger Hopkins, but it's hard to accept that the handsome dark-haired youth could turn into a man resembling the older Hopkins--and he's a bit of odd casting too.

Kidman is forced to recite lines like: "Action is the enemy of thought," which is about as meaningless as the priceless "love means never having to say you're sorry" (from LOVE STORY). She's a girl with no possessions who travels light, falls in love easily with an older man and later informs him that she has a crazed ex-husband. Both she and Hopkins have constructed their lives around a lie and it seems they deserve each other. Neither one becomes a sympathetic character we can really care about.

An interesting failure, it tries to say serious things about race but too much of it is unbelievable and handicapped by unpleasant characterizations and implausible plot contrivances.

Two lonely people come together, Coleman Silk (Anthony Hopkins), a professor who quits his job after a supposed racial slur and Faunia Farley (Nicole Kidman), an eccentric younger woman disabused by the harsh realities of her life. A former welterweight boxer who has turned his back on his race, Silk lives as a white man caught in an ironic twist of fate. In a fine blend of racism and religious intolerance before the gratuity of political correctness, the young Coleman makes irreversible decisions that critically affect his later years. As a deeply melancholic mature man, Coleman finds sudden happiness with Faunia in spite of her personal despondency and refusal to believe in joy.

Moody and dark, played out against countryside covered with snow, the fine-tuned cinematography catches every nuance of shadow and flesh, as the movie evolves into an agonizing collision of desire vs. reality. Acting out the role of Achilles, pitted against fate and the grim determination of the gods, Silk refuses to give up the younger woman, no matter the consequences.

The film is carefully balanced, shifting from present to past, exposing the painful histories of the characters, the roots of their flaws. The supporting roles are beautifully played by Gary Sinise as Nathan Zukerman, a reclusive writer and friend of Silk's and Ed Harris as Lester Farley, an ex-Vietnam vet unable to purge the violence from his life. In the end, seeking an island of comfort, Silk and Faunia gravitate to one another, sensing at least a temporary respite from an often cruel world. "The things that restore you can destroy you." Luan Gaines/ 2005.

...I had the feeling that this film pretty much lost sight of the woods for the trees. It begins with Achilles' dilemma in The Iliad with a slave girl which his king also covets, then quickly moves to the excesses of political correctness in academia, then to American sexual hypocrisy and sanctimony in the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, to a Viagra-assisted, sixty-something sudden-widower who suddenly lands a vivacious thirty-something woman from a very different social and economic class background with a very checkered past, her Vietnam-scarred psychopathic ex-husband who stalks her, the dramatic reinvigoration and sexual reawakening in such a winter-spring relationship, to the deeply ingrained racism in American society as experienced by a mulatto boy who decides to pass himself as Jewish and breaks ties with his family.

All this might be gracefully contained in a 400-page novel (maybe...I haven't read Roth's book yet) but crammed into a 2-hour movie, it all feels a bit disjointed.

While Kidman, Hopkins, Harris and Sinese are all a bit miscast in their roles, all three put in solid performances...Kidman has never looked more appealing and real, in contrast to her usual generic-blonde look. Hopkins isn't quite up to the anguish and explosive rage that his character is supposed to express in a few of the scenes---he simply doesn't have the range for it---but is otherwise competent. The film is beautifully shot, with a very effective score, and technically superb.

What's missing though is any kind of overarching theme or point to tie everything together. I suppose we could deduce one from the title: "The Human Stain" as a rather misanthropic treatise on the abject depths to which humanity constantly sinks? It's possible but there is no strong impetus to be found in the movie, which ends with Harris and Sinese conversing upon a frozen lake. The scene is well-acted, well-written, well-directed...but again, like the entire film, while enjoyable leaves us scratching our heads and wondering what in the world it was all supposed to be ABOUT.

The Human Stain starring Anthony Hopkins is full of raw emotion, shame, and the power to forgive are the themes explored in this provactive film. Nicole Kidman has an affair with Hopkins, she plays a janitor who has a secret past and he has been carrying a secret of his own for pratically is whole adult life. They learn to trust each other and the although ending is a bit of a let down, I would say The Human Stain will keep you interested in unlocking the shameful secrets of these two shattered individuals. A film not to be missed, happy viewing!

Yes, Phillip Roth's gaudily angry masterwork of a novel has its own particular power, but despite the naysayers, the film adaptation of THE HUMAN STAIN is successful on every level. It retains all of the harsh social commentary so biting in Roth's written words and yet fleshes out the characters in a way that makes the story of an aging small college Dean/teacher's fall from his pedestal of a life all the more credible. Some of the minor characters from the book are gone, true, and the faculty of his college doesn't feel as visually present, but the story's strange impact is very much intact.

Coleman Silk (in a stunningly multi-layered performance by Anthony Hopkins) was born a mulatto African American and decided in highschool (his younger self portrayed with sensitivity by Wentworth Miller), while being a champion boxer in order to gain college scholarships, that passing as Caucasian would provide entry into a better life, one not stained by the color of his skin and not confined to subservient roles like those forced on his educated father. He succeeds in passing as white with a few exceptions: he brings his blonde college girlfriend home to meet his mother (a sensitive role for Anna Devere Smith) and finds that his girlfriend cannot accept his roots. He then extracts himself from his family completely, lives as a Jew, and joins the faculty of Athena College - a small, proper school which he forcefully overhauls until he becomes the formidable Dean. A simple statement in a classroom - referring to two unseen students who have never shown for his class as "spooks" (ghosts), not knowing that the missing students were African American - results in his being fired for racism for his epithet.

Angry and lost, Silk encounters a woman (Fawnia) who cleans toilets, milks cows, and appears to be nothing more than white trailer park trash, has a physical encounter with her, then finds himself becoming emotionally captive to the creature. Fawnia (one of Nicole Kidman's finest roles to date) keeps to herself, providing only lusty outlets for Silk, but gradually reveals that she is married to a stalking Vietnam Vet gone insane (Ed Harris in another quality cameo role), has two dead children lost in a fire, and indeed came from a wealthy family she elected to leave because of her parent's shallow obsession with possessions. Fawnia lives only for the moment.

Silk meets Zuckerman (Gary Sinese), a novelist suffering from writer's block who lives in hiding in a secluded cabin and who intones the thoughts of novelist Roth. He encourages Zuckerman to cure his block by writing a novel about his (Silk's) bizarre life's turn of events. Silk finally tells Fawnia his real secret of passing as white, finds his last love, encourages Fawnia to also shed her life of lies, and the story ends where it begins - with a fatal car crash.

The story is set in 1998 and frequently refers to the Clinton/Lewinsky affair and the general stagnation of public morals and bigotry, unveiling all the hypocrisy that stews through every level of our society. The use of this battle of private versus public life is extended in many aspects of this story and always leaves questions as unanswered as they truly remain today. Director Robert Benton has done a masterful job pacing this pungent piece. The acting is extraordinary, especially from Kidman and Hopkins who manage to electrify the screen in animal sexuality, despite all the odds against such an attraction being credible. Watch this film, AND read Roth's book, and your view of our society will be altered inextricably.