Human Stain Review
by Jon Popick (jpopick AT sick-boy DOT com)October 24th, 2003
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Every so often a "can't miss" Oscar-bait movie with a great cast is released but quickly vanishes from both theatres and the collective consciousness of the moviegoing public. I'm not talking about gigantic, punch-line flops like Ishtar or Waterworld. I mean pictures like The Shipping News (Kevin Spacey, Cate Blanchett, Julianne Moore, Judi Dench) and Twilight (Paul Newman, Susan Sarandon, Reese Witherspoon, Gene Hackman, Stockard Channing) - movies that, for whatever reason, never make that important connection with the audience.
In an effort, perhaps, to show that big stars do not necessarily make a big impact, Twilight director Robert Benton returns to the screen with a picture that boasts four leads who have eleven Oscar nominations and two wins. The Human Stain, based on Philip Roth's novel, is set in 1998 at tiny Athena College in Massachusetts. It's the height of Lewinskygate and asshat political correctness, but it's the latter that finds Coleman Silk (Anthony Hopkins, Red Dragon), Jewish Professor of Classics, the focus of trumped-up charges of racism when two perpetually absent students cause him to wonder aloud, "Do they exist, or are they spooks?"
In a matter of minutes, Silk finds himself out of a job and a widower when he brings the story of workplace injustice home to his wife (Phyllis Newman), who promptly keels over in what is, frankly, a pretty funny scene. Then things start to get sloppy. Silk seeks out writer-in-hiding Nathan Zuckerman (Gary Sinise, Impostor), who becomes the film's narrator and Silk's confidant after he attempts to browbeat the man into writing a book about how Athena College killed his wife. Silk also takes up with a milkmaid/cleaning woman/postal clerk from the wrong side of the tracks. Her name is Faunia Farley (Nicole Kidman, The Hours), and the small town is shocked to see the former paragon of the community slumming it with this particular piece of white trash.
But that's not all. We also get copious amounts of flashbacks to Silk's youth (where he's played by Wentworth Miller), in which we learn a Very Big Secret about him and his family. This VBS involves an uncomfortable full-frontal nudity scene with Jacinda Barrett (Real World: London), which, coupled with a similar event concerning Witherspoon in Twilight, makes you wonder if Benton is becoming the new Bernardo Bertolucci.
Stain is all about the secrets. Faunia has some of her own, which revolve around her psychotic ex-husband Lester (Ed Harris, The Hours). Faunia's skeletons are upsetting and emotional, while Silk's are, frankly, a bit preposterous. Most of the unbelievability is rooted in really odd casting. If you know the VBS, you'll know what I'm talking about. I think when most people hear about the VBS, they're going to laugh their asses right off.
The handling of Silk's VBS aside, there are other major issues here, and most relate to casting. For starters, Hopkins and Miller look absolutely nothing alike, even though they're playing the same character at different ages. Additionally, Hopkins and Kidman enjoy the chemistry of Liza Minnelli and David Gest - no wonder Hopkins admitted, on The Howard Stern Show, that he didn't get wood in any of Stain's sex scenes. I sure didn't get any watching it, either. Kidman's beauty doesn't suit this role, either (Benton, who directed Kidman in Billy Bathgate, attempts to downplay her looks in shadows and behind waves of mousy brown hair), though she makes the most of a poverty-stricken accent and the skittishness of an abused dog.
For the most part, the acting in Stain is fairly pedestrian, especially if you've just seen Mystic River. Kidman stepped into this role after bailing on her own acquisition of the screen rights to Susanna Moore's In the Cut, which ironically opens just days before Stain. Also worth mentioning: Cinematographer Jean-Yves Escoffier (Possession) died less than a year after filming was wrapped.
1:46 - R for language and sexuality/nudity
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