Lolita (1997) Directed by: Adrian Lyne Story by: Vladimir Nabokov Screenplay by: Stephen Schiff Music by: Ennio Morricone Rating: R
The Teaser:
Well, I might as well admit it from the start: I haven't seen Kubrick's version of Lolita, so you can take that into account when you read the following. I am, however, in the process of reading the book as I write this, so I've decided that I have a more or less adequate frame of reference to review this flick fairly. So, without much further ado:
The Synopsis:
The plot revolves around a Mr. Humbert Humbert. As the film opens, we are treated to a wailing, 40's-style car, trying to drive in a straight line down a country road, but failing miserably to do so. In it, Humbert (Jeremy Irons) is in a dazed and confused state of mind, a gun lying on the seat beside him, and blood on his clothes. I find myself thinking: "Hey!"
Cue overvoiced monologue. Humbert tells the audience about his first love, Annabelle, whom he met when he was living with his parents at a hotel somewhere in southern Europe (sorry, didn't quite catch the country). At this point he is fourteen. Humbert states that: "Whatever happens to a boy on the summer of his fourteenth year, can shape him for the rest of his life." The film quickly shows us that Humbert and Annabelle has an (at the very least) semi-sexual relationship. And then it kills her off stating: Typhus.
Humbert, devastated at the loss of his first love, still lives on, and the movie next joins him some three decades later as he arrives in America, where he is to live with a friend, eventually taking a position as a teacher at a local college. However, his friend's house is no more, so instead he goes to live at a friend of his friend, the widow Charlotte Haze (Melanie Griffith). Upon arriving at the house, Charlotte puts some rather un-subtle moves on Humbert, who dismisses them with British properness. He isn't really thrilled about the place, and thinks about excusing himself and finding a hotel instead, but then he eyes Charlotte's daughter, Dolores (called Lolita, and played by Dominique Swain), and is instantly attracted to her, even though she is only a twelve-year old. He promptly decides to stay.
During the next month or so, the sexual tension rises between the bubble-gum blowing Lolita and Humbert, while Charlotte and Lolita have a host of fights. Humbert manages to get in a few sexual advances at Lolita when Charlotte's not looking, and she doesn't reject him openly. Humbert's fairy tale ends, though, as Charlotte decides to send Lolita to a summer camp. Humbert, not wanting to be suspected, grudgingly keeps silent. Lolita accuses him of being a traitor, and he starts feeling sorry.
The day Lo's going to summer camp, Humbert wakes up late, and rushes to the window. Lolita is just about to get into the car, when she looks up at the house and sees Humbert. She dashes from the car, to the great irritation of Charlotte, and runs up to Humbert's room, where she gives him one passionate kiss, then runs down again. Humbert, astonished, sees the car drive away. He walks into Lo's room and throws himself into her left clothes, hoping to catch an essence of her.
The maid arrives at that point and hands him a letter, which he opens and reads. It is from Charlotte, who basically says that if he still is there when she comes home from driving Lo to the summer camp, then she takes it as a declaration of love. They are soon married.
It is not a happy marriage, though. Humbert doesn't want to have sex with Charlotte, and, as such, gives her sleeping pills in order to get her off his back, but they soon prove to not be enough. He then goes to a doctor and casually asks about what might put a cow in a coma. The doctor sympathizes with Humbert, and gives him a new sort of sleeping pills; the sort the doctor himself uses on HIS wife.
Humbert returns home, but finds that Charlotte has discovered some entries from his diary, which describes her in a very bad tone, and contains some very loving comments about Lolita. She yells at him, telling him that he'll never see Lolita again, and that she'll leave him. He stammers through a weak explanation about it being an outline for a novel ("I used you and Lo's names for easy reference!") and says that he'll fix them a drink. He mixes two drinks, all the while talking to her from the kitchen, but as he is about to go into the living room again, a phone rings. He answers it, and then says to Charlotte: "Honey, there's a man here claiming you're dead."
He runs to the living room, where Charlotte is nowhere to be seen, then dashes to the street. Charlotte has been run over by a car, while going to the mailbox to mail some letters. Humbert is shocked, yet he quickly recovers, and decides to go to fetch Lolita, after burning the letters.
Humbert arrives in the girl summer camp and is rather alarmed when a boy named Charly is sent to get Lolita. Lolita is cheerful, though, and the two embark on a trip to a nearby hotel, Humbert telling Lo that her mother is sick and in the hospital. Lolita shrugs it away and moves on to tell Humbert that she's been unfaithful to him, "not that it matters". Humbert asks her why it shouldn't matter. She replies that he doesn't care for her anymore; explaining it with him not having kissed her yet. They pull over and they start making out, but are interrupted by a passing police officer, but although they are forced to break off their kissing, the officer doesn't take any special notice.
The two arrive at the hotel, but a priest convention is taking up a lot of hotel space, so Humbert and Lo have to share a room with one bed. Lolita wants to tell Humbert about something Charly, the only boy at the summer camp, taught her, but Humbert refuses. Humbert allows for her to get undressed and go to bed without him looking on, and he takes a stroll through the lobby. He is, however, uncomfortable around the priests, and slips outside. Once outside, a mysterious man adresses him, claiming to be "with no-one." The man hints that he knows about Humberts intensions towards Lolita, but disappears before Humbert can confront him. Humbert retreats to the bedroom again, where he lies down beside the now sleeping Lolita.
The next morning, Humbert wakes up, finding Lolita besides him. She is giddy and wants to tell him about what Charly taught her. She whispers it in his ear, and he grins, saying that he had never done that. Lolita dares him, then notes: "One's got to show you everything." She then rolls on top of him, and they laugh at each other.
Cut to later. They are checking out of the hotel, and driving on. Stopping at a gas station, Lolita wants to call her mom at the hospital, but Humbert tells her she's dead. Cut to a cheap motel that night. Lolita is sobbing in one room; Humbert staring into the ceiling in another. Lolita eventually comes running in to be comforted by Humbert.
Now begins a long journey that ends with Humbert arriving at the city where he is to teach. Upon arrival, he applies for a teaching job in prep-school instead, and he gets it. Lolita begins attending that school, too. All is well at first, but Lolita begins a rebellion against Humbert, who doesn't want her to fraternize too much with her friends at school. Nevertheless, Humbert allows her to be in a school-play, written by an author named Quilty (Frank Langella) who bears a striking resemblance to the mystical man that confronted Humbert at the hotel.
Eventually Lo and Humbert get into a fight, which ends with Lolita running out and away. Humbert begins a search for her, and locates her in an icebar the same evening. There, she has decided that they ought to go on another journey. Humbert willingly agrees, and as a voiceover confirms that he is signing his own death sentence by agreeing, the journey begins.
Humbert notices that they are being followed, but Lolita thinks nothing of it. At some point during the journey, Lolita falls ill, and Humbert takes her to a hospital. Although he wants to stay, the doctor sends him home, and when he arrives the next day, Lolita is gone. He goes into a hysterical frenzy, but manages to control himself once the police arrive.
Embarking on a search for Lolita, Humbert travels around, but is unable to find her anywhere, and thus, returns to his teaching position. Once there, he gets a letter from Lolita. She writes that she is now married and pregnant, but that they are missing money. Humbert, obsessed with taking revenge on his rival goes to Lolita personally, but discovers that it is not the man she has married that she betrayed him for. Lolita tells him that the man she really loved was Quilty, though she left him because he wanted her to be in an "art movie. Two boys, two men, and two girls." Humbert gives her the money she needs, begging her to come and live with him. Lolita refuses, stating that her husband needs her. Accepting that, Humbert takes off to find and murder Quilty.
He eventually tracks Quilty to a big mansion, where he corners him and, after a bit of cat-and-mouse playing, shoots him several times. Quilty remains all the time blissfully unaware that he is about to die, as he is clearly either influenced by drugs or simply a madman. Humbert takes off again, and we're back where we started. He drives to a hill, cops hot on his tail, and looks out over a small city. He delivers one final voice-over as we cut to the credits.
The Rambling:
First, let me apologize for the rushedness of the last part of my synopsis. I didn't want to go into as much detail after Humbert got what he wanted, but on the other hand, I needed to mention the rest of the plot after so much detail on the other half.
I found the movie to be quite good. In fact, rather good. In fact, very good. While there were quite a few details the movie failed to mention, which has mention in the book, I don't think it failed a lot there. It would be hard to cramp all the details in a feature film.
The movie is built up in a way that lays most weight on two characters, Humbert and Lolita, so the whole picture more or less falls flat if they fall flat. Fortunately, they don't. Even though I haven't seen Jeremy Irons in a lot of other films, I was looking forward to seeing him, because he's always delivered sterling performances, but here is an exception. His performance here is not sterling; it's stellar. He perfectly conveys Humbert's strangely fascinating obsession with 'nymphettes' (as Humbert calls them), and I truly sympathize with him when it all falls through. The voice-overs especially are extremely well read, and the final scene, where he confronts his anti-thesis (more on that later) Quilty, is fantastic.
Dominique Swain came from nowhere as far as I know, but she is perfectly cast as Lolita, playing her with just the right mixture of innocence and insidiousness. Plus, she looks the part. I'll admit that I, while I mostly confine myself to worshiping Natalie Portman when it comes to young actresses, was really swayed over by her performance. There is spectacular talent in the young woman, and I can only hope that it will be used in the future.
The rest of the cast delivered for the most part decent performances, but Melanie Griffith stood out as a rather nice performance, giving an almost likeable personality to the irritating housewife she was given. Frank Langella was okay in his scenes, too, but I had a feeling of routine acting from his part. Of course, it might have been him being outshone by Jeremy Irons, so I'm willing to guess that he did the best he could with his rather limited material.
The directing was good, although I never really got the surrealistic nightmare-like scene, which is exactly why I haven't mentioned it in my synopsis.
Now to the anti-thesis thing. The reason I can sympatize with Humbert, is that he has a genuinely likeable personality. He is gentle and compassionate, and actually has very few flaws (although they are pretty big). It is that way I like to think of myself too, so that's more or less the reason I like the guy. Quilty, however, is not like that. He is the mass-producing artist to Humbert's compassionate painter. While Humbert might use a few years on a single painting, Quilty might spare not more than a few days on each. With painting being a metaphor for 'nymphette', of course. Quilty is a pedophile; Humbert's a childlover. The difference may not be obvious, so let me clarify: Quilty wants sex with children for a kick - Humbert sees children romantically, and truly loves them. And, just as a normal man would love a grown-up woman, he loves a child, taking all parts of the relationship with it. Including the sex.
In fact, the whole story is, in my eyes, not about sex with children or anything like that; it is about a man's obsession with a woman (alright, girl) and how he is taken to the extremes of his emotions. I think the story is more of a love story than a lust story. It is the romantical Humbert Humbert in one corner, and everyone else in the other. Even Lolita, the girl he loves, goes against him. It is a tradegy of Shakespearean proportions in my humble opinion. I suppose I'll take more than a little pounding for that remark.
The Music:
Ennio Morricone is mostly known for his western soundtracks, but here he does a good job too. The music lies in the background, as well it should do in a movie like this, and helps set the mood right. Every once in a while, and old song from the era pops up as Lolita hears it, and they are quite well chosen. The soundtrack in itself is not exactly spectacular, but it is okay. Buy it if you really like 40's music or if you're a fan of Ennio Morricone, else, hear it first.
The Summing-Up:
I started my rambling with saying that I thought the movie to be very good. As I've thought a little bit about it, I've redicided: I think it is excellent. I understand that it didn't reach theaters in the US, to which I can only say I am sorry. I would have loved to see this movie on the big screen, but even here in Denmark, it only got into certain theaters, and not any in my vicinity. I recommend this to anyone who loves a good story about obsessiveness, as well as to people who enjoy great acting (and who doesn't?).
Rating: 9.5/10
Best line: "Please concentrate, Mr. Quilty. You are about to die!" -Humbert
-- Mikkel Lodahl jacen@mindless.com
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