Lolita

Rating:
Summary: A True Masterpiece
Review: "Lolita" is the tale of a middle aged man who long ago lost the love of his life and ever since that he has been searching high and low for that girl that was much like Annabelle was. He finds that in young Lolita. She is virbrant, joyful, and full of energy. He falls madly in love with her and they go on a long roadtrip that eventually has deadly consequences.

"Lolita" is a tale of lust, deceit, betrayal and love. It is a classic tragedy beautifully written and acted. Dominique Swain is magnificent as the young nymphette who Humbert Humbert falls in love with, and Jeremy Irons is excellent as the middle aged professor.

Rating:
Summary: Sappy misinterpretation of a classic
Review: Thank heavens Nabokov wasn't around to see this.

There is little sense of the peculiar, breezy humor in Nabokov's book, for one thing. Director Lyne's cop-out textual ending of 'what happened to Lolita' is reason enough to dismiss this overly sentimental film as a misinterpretation of the novel.

The character of Claire Quilty is so poorly realized, I could only conclude that Lyne produced this for people who don't have the ability to read the book... that way, his audience couldn't say he got it wrong. There's just one oddity after another in the interpretation.

Best thing I can say is that Dominique Swain makes a better nymphet than Kubrick's Sue Lyon. Another plus is the perky, pleasant art direction. Everything light as a summer's day. But on balance, this tends to just make the whole thing strangely sappy and sentimental, with an added effect of placing the controversial plot in a time and place that no longer exist. I have to wonder if Lyne was just too scared of what people would say.

For a rather better adaptation (considering especially the era of its production), do buy and watch (over and over) Kubrick's creepy stunner of the same title. Kubrick really understood Nabokov's ability to suddenly show a situation from another, startling way... just watch how the demise of Claire Quilty is edited, and Nabokov speaks!

Rating:
Summary: A brilliant, honest adaptation
Review: This isn't the book. No filmmaker could possibly put the whole book on the screen and capture Nabokov's magic. But this is so faithful an adaptation that it has to be put well above Kubrick's well-shot but cringe-inducing misfire.

How faithful is it? Almost ALL the dialogue is directly from the book. There's even a couple of points where the editing reflects the book!

Adrien Lyne shows us a side we never saw in "Flashdance." He's understated, attentive, and caring for his actors. Jeremy Irons and Dominique Swain (one wonders where she went) perform beautifully as Humbert Humbert and his Lolita. Melanie Griffith is surprisingly good; I disagree with a previous reviewer, the point of Mrs. Haze isn't that she's repulsive but that she manifests everything Humbert finds repulsive about America. The screaming, the violence, the pretending to be "cultured" when you're not. Griffith is quite good at getting on your nerves; you can hardly blame Humbert for finding the woman intolerable.

This is a classic film and should be in your collection. The minute I have the money, it goes into mine!.

Rating:
Summary: lolita is not what it sounds like.
Review: when people hear that 'lolita' is about a guy who falls in love with a 12 year old girl and marries her widowed mother to get close to her, they are generally disgusted. but the way nabokov portrays the story, it makes absolute sense. adrian lyne's movie captured that sense of rightness perfectly, with the help of some ingenious actors. nobody could have been better for the role of lolita than domonique swain. her voice, face, body, and attitude are all those of a true nymphet. and jeremy irons is exquisite as humbert humbert, almost persuading us that it is perfectly natural for a forty year old man to be sleeping with a 13 year old girl. and the movie is so faithful to the book that most conversations can be recognized as verbatum. as 'vanity fair' said, 'lolita' is the only convincing love story of our time.

Rating:
Summary: Too bad Louis Malle never directed Lolita
Review: The first thing amiss with Adrian Lyne's "Lolita" is that Melanie Griffith is entirely wrong for the part of Charlotte Haze. "The Haze woman" must be unattractive. Shelly Winters in Kubrick's Lolita (1962) was perfect for the part because she was a woman who had lost her looks. Charlotte must be unattractive as a contrast to Lo (and not just in Humbert's mind); furthermore the references to her as a "fat cow" and Humbert's disinclination to make love to her, do not play well if she's attractive. Melanie Griffith is actually better looking than the young star, Dominique Swain, who plays Lolita. Swain is pretty enough, however, and although not the great beauty that Sue Lyon (who played Lolita in the original) was, she does the coquettish muggings better than Sue Lyon did and she is allowed more latitude. Humbert never even kissed Lolita in Kubrick's version!

Nonetheless, the second thing wrong with this interpretation is Swain herself. Although wonderfully directed, she is ironically too old to be Lolita. She is hardly a nymphet.

Jeremy Irons does a superior job of making us feel how sad and trapped Humbert is. Frank Langella as the libertine Claire Quilty is excellent and wonderfully cast, but his role is limited. Whereas Peter Sellers played several parts, including the school psychologist, Langella speaks in only two scenes, briefly at the Enchanted Huntress as a spats-wearing past-post Romeo, and then of course in the finale.

Where the Lyne film is clearly superior is in the minutia of the late-forties world of highway America: the country and western stations on the radio, the "Notices" on the back doors of the motels, the movie magazines and comics, the jaw-breakers and the gum under the dashboard, the many mid-drift children's outfits that Swain wears, the vintage motel and gas station signs, etc., etc. Lyne also does a number of nice visuals. The price tag hanging from the dark glasses Humbert is trying on as he desperately tries to see through two windows inside the gas station to what Lolita is doing with whom on the other side of their station wagon is an example. And then there is that symbolic single cow at the end in the field with Humbert and the station wagon, suggesting a reincarnated Charlotte Haze observing what has befallen Humbert.

Unfortunately Lyne's attention wanders at times. He has Humbert stare at Lolita in the important scene when he first spots her on the lawn much, much too long so that Charlotte could not help but notice his noticing. And in the scene on the front porch, with the three of them together on the swing, Charlotte would have to be blind not to see the sex play between the two. And when Melanie quotes Humbert from his diary calling her "that fat cow" we can see by just looking at her that she is anything but. And the scene with her on his lap while he is trying to read at his desk is totally ineffective since Melanie is quite fetching and most males would be happy to carry her off to bed. Corny and tiresome were Lo's vanilla ice cream and milk mustaches. And we could have been spared the obvious and trite "symbolism" of the bananas and lipstick as Lo rides in the car thinking of Quilty.

But it is entirely right that Lyne makes the motel rooms sorted and cheap. He shows a sign advertising "Children under 14 free" at one of Humbert's choice stopping places, slyly reminding the cognoscente that Nabokov's nymphet should be younger than Shakespeare's Juliet, who was thirteen. (Given the puritanical nature of the American psyche, neither Lyne nor Kubrick was able to make a "true to the book" film.) She becomes a prostitute, effectively speaking, as she negotiates with Humbert over coins for her favors. When Humbert tries to grab her saved-up money for fear she will use it to escape him, she shouts indignantly, "I EARNED that money!"

The really terrible thing about Nabokov's tale that both directors got right is the unrelenting possessiveness of Humbert. That was his undoing of course, and really shows the perverted nature of his love for her. If he had really loved her, he would have stepped aside and let her live a normal life. That's what fathers do. That he loved her as a woman is not as much a tragedy as the jealousy and control. Lolita makes this clear when as the pregnant "Dolly," looking common and matronly in a cheap house with a working-class husband, she sees Humbert for the last time. He begs her to go with him, but she tells him she would almost rather go back to Quilty. Lyne adds a final wound by having Humbert ask her if she can ever forgive him for what he did to her, allowing Lolita to reply (addressing the dog) "Molly, say good-bye to my Dad." "Some Dad!" is Lyne's message.

This interpretation will be more agreeable to some since it reenforces the idea that teen sexuality is wrong. As usual, we see that nobody cares about the girl. The feminists know she has the sexual power, and they are jealous. They want her off limits so that they have a better currency themselves. This is the political position of the sexual wars, and Lyne has fallen into it. I think we need a French Lolita, as done by somebody like the late Louis Malle. I don't expect this for another hundred years, however. This film ought to kill the theme for quite a while.

Rating:
Summary: Lolita-the comic book and the lake point cottages scenes
Review: You may have heard this by now but for those who haven't here we go.Lolita had scenes that were heavily edited by Lyne with the help of a first amendment attorney due to the fact that some of it's scenes would be deemed child pornography under the Child Pornography Protection Act of 1996 or CPPA.It didn't matter if Swain had a bodydouble the fact the bodydouble "appeared" to be a minor engaging in an "explicit" sexual act even if it was simulated was in violation of the CPPA even though minors can engage in sex in a film it just can't be "explicit" hence the reason the scenes looked tame.I recently found some information on the net regarding "the comic book" and "the lake point cottages" scenes these scenes uncut were going to be put on the European region 2 DVD as deleted scenes but the British Board of Film Certification or BBFC would not give them a certificate so they weren't released in the in the supplemental material.I did find that the region 2 DVD has 9 deleted scenes vs. the U.S. region 1 DVD that has 8 what this extra scene is I don't know what but it is not one of the two mentioned above.To find out why the BBFC would not allow them and the CPPA would call them child pornography use google as your search engine and type in the space [lolita the comic book] and they are the first two at the top.This is the first and only details of these uncut scenes that I've found and from what I read I can see why Lyne had to cut them because even though Swain used a bodydouble as I said at the begining it dosen't matter because it "appeared" to be a minor engaging in "explicit" sex and thats child pornography which also makes The Blue Lagoon and Endless Love child pornography under the current law.Besides all of this its a great film and should not be avoided due to it's dark subject matter or it's current eviscerated version.

Rating:
Summary: Lolita will "age" with grace and find it's place
Review: I'm not twelve years old but I had to put something. I recently rented Lolita from Blockbuster video for one week becuase it was an old release and I'm glad I did because on the first viewing you learn Lolita and Humbert's mannerisms,nuance and tics then on the second viewing its pretty cool to watch them push each each others emotional and sexual buttons.If the film seems tame Its only because for better or worse it builds you up for what you think is going to be some big "payoff" and It doesn't deliver you get a fade to black or a toned down edit instead.The only reason for this is The Child Pornography Protection Act of 1996 which forbids children from appearing in "sexually explicit films,photographs,etc." but it doesn't forbid sex as long as its not "explicit" and Swain had a bodydouble and a stand in so I suspect there would have been more nudity and sex if it weren't for the above law.This law helps the film because more is left up to the imagination and creates a demand for an NC-17,unrated or directors cut with the more explicit footage and perhaps the deleted scenes from the DVD that are supposed to be great according to the DVD reviews.It hurts the film because the realism in films that we are accustom to as a result of the disbanding of the old Hollywood production code is somewhat absent here as a result of edits and fade to black in this film.In the film's present form it looks like Lyne used every trick in the book,despite the above law,to create daring,provacative and thoughtful film about love,loss and obsession.I belive this film will be an art house and midnight movie classic because the small screen does this film no justice because of its powerfull imagery,emotion and it's subtle,yet wonderful,musical score.The subject matter may be dark but if you look at this film with an open mind you will be well rewarded.

Rating:
Summary: Better Than the Kubrick Version
Review: Director Adrian Lyne's intelligent, disturbing remake of the Nabokov novel benefits from perfectly realized performances by Jeremy Irons (as the obsessive Humbert) and Dominique Swain (in the title role). Simply put, the 1997 "Lolita" is superb filmmaking and a decided improvement over Stanley Kubrick's uneven 1962 version. Unlike Kubrick, Lyne is more faithful to Nabokov in terms of atmosphere and narrative structure. The postwar period detail is flawlessly evoked, while the supporting performances of Melanie Griffith and Frank Langella are more grounded in reality. "Lolita" remains a powerful work with a cinematic spark rarely seen these days.

Rating:
Summary: don't mess with a master like kubrick
Review: Director Adrian Lyne has delivered an inferior version of Lolita. Stanley Kubrick's earlier version, with James Mason in the role of Humbert Humbert is definitive, despite being able to do less with the sexuality of the piece thanks to the censorship of the time.

This new Lolita occasionally comes across as salacious, which undermines the intentions of the plot.

My advice anyway is to read Nabokov's novel, which is far better than either film version thanks to its incredible manipulation of language.

Rating:
Summary: 1940's Road Trip: Love, Lust and Tragedy
Review: This movie is well-directed and acted. Period music fills it with an authentically '40's feel. I think the film has a touch of film noir as well. (There are some rainy night scenes, several scenes of shadows, darkness, blue light and smoke, and some mysterious characters and plot twists.) Also, Lolita and Humbert are "on the run" for much of the film, which adds some suspense (and makes it even more film noir). (I find it funny that Amazon includes this film in its "Murder and Mayhem" category. I didn't know there was such a thing!)

In any event, I think that's what I loved most about the film, the constant travelling, moving on. I thought it was interesting too that the only constancy between them as they drove from place to place was each other, and that it was in this way that they really got to know one another and love each other, two souls meandering. It seems an altogether American story (road-trip/adventure) in that sense. I also liked seeing the actual cars from that era, and the hotel rooms with the coin-operated music players, etc. I think the director did a nice job with all of these details.

Critics of the subject matter should know that this is not an all-or-nothing movie, and that part of the tragedy of the story lies in the very thing which creates it, ie: Humbert's obsession with girls who are almost, but not quite yet, women. In other words, no one escapes scot-free.

Jeremy Irons, true to form, digs deep into his character and does an amazing job at showing the depth of Humbert's feelings, both the elation he feels in his love/lust/relationship with Lolita, and the despair when he realizes he can never really capture her in the way he wants/needs. Lolita is his heaven and his hell.

Swain gives a solid performance as Lolita ("Dolores Hayes"). She captures well all the (contradicting) elements of graceful "nymphette" and awkward, un-ladylike teenage girl. (It is this very contradiction that Humbert himself tells us would not likely be enough for a "normal" man, but which transfixes Humbert to his very soul.) With such a well-acted first role, she shows great promise as an actress.

All in all, an interesting way to spend an evening.

PS: The video I rented included a behind-the-scenes segment which featured commentary by British director Adrian Lyne and the cast. I found it interesting, but would suggest watching it *after* viewing the film, because it shows scenes from the whole movie, and may take some of the magic out of watching the plot unfold by watching the film itself.