5/5 AN IMPORTANT FILM, WORTH REPEATED VIEWINGS
  by David R. Eastwood (Long Island, NY)
Everyone who has seen the film LAWRENCE OF ARABIA remembers how it opens with the death of T. E. Lawrence (Peter O'Toole): he drives his motorcycle off a gravel road to avoid hitting some pedestrians. Similarly, THE HUMAN STAIN begins with the deaths of Coleman Silk (Anthony Hopkins) and his lover, Faunia Farley (Nicole Kidman): Silk drives his car off an icy road to avoid hitting an approaching pickup truck that deliberately swerved into their lane. About 98% of the subsequent parts of both films are giant flashbacks showing us the significant life-choices Lawrence and Silk made and the things they said and did BEFORE that fatal moment.

One of these films is an affirmation, with a kind of summing up; the other is a catalyst or trigger for further thought. In the case of Lawrence, the many remaining scenes arouse our respect and admiration for a heroic historical individual. In that of Silk, we are meant to feel sorrow and compassion for a man with a hidden past--and similar feelings for his lover and for her ex-husband and for almost everyone else in this film--and THEN we are meant to generalize and begin to think about the many flaws in human nature and human society that cause so much suffering for ourselves and for the people we live among: anti-Semitism, racism, classism, ageism, snobbishness, racism, jealousy, hypocricy, cowardice, greed, distrust, racism, selfishness, sexism, puritanism, etc. etc. etc. And did I mention racism yet?

Other reviewers have complained that THE HUMAN STAIN leaves out too many parts of Philip Roth's wonderful novel, that Hopkins has a Welsh accent (would Jeff Bridges have done better?), that the actor playing Silk as a younger man (Wentworth Miller) doesn't look or sound like Hopkins, that the love relationship between Silk and Faunia (who is half his age) is "creepy," etc. etc. etc. For those reviewers, this film did not work; something got in the way. I am pretty certain, too, that for my late parents and for my late sister (as well as a few dozen ex-in-laws), this film would not have worked either--chiefly because of their blatant, lamentable RACISM (which many reviewers avoid discussing). One of the huge ironies of THE HUMAN STAIN is that if Silk's secret had been known to any of his fellow faculty members or townspeople, he would have been hated--and probably murdered--because of that, rather than for his (imaginary) Jewishness or for the May-December aspect of his love affair--with an uneducated "white trash cleaning lady." (By the way, Coleman Silk's fatal relationship with Faunia Farley is bracketed for us in the movie as being somewhere between Pres. Clinton's obsession with Ms. Lewinsky and that of Achilles with Briseis, the slave girl that Agamemnon coveted in THE ILIAD.)

While I was fully conscious of the differences between Miller's and Hopkins' portrayals of Silk, this did not bother me. I thought both actors did fine jobs with their scenes, as did Nicole Kidman (she is especially wonderful when talking with the captive crow!) and Gary Sinise (playing Nathan Zuckerman, who, at the end, is writing about Silk--and who perhaps has been, in a kind of loop, presenting us Silk's story all along, including how Silk met him). Phyllis Newman (an actress I admired forty years ago) does an excellent brief scene as Silk's wife, Iris, who suffers a fatal heart attack when he is falsely accused of being a racist, and Ed Harris is totally believable and totally wonderful as Lester Farley, Kidman's jealous, half-crazy, Vietnam-vet ex-husband (this is the best performance I have ever seen Harris give). Kudos also to Mimi Kuzyk as ambitious Prof. Delphine Roux, who viciously accuses Silk of being a racist.

Do the five stars I gave this film mean I think it is nearly perfect? No--if I were giving it a letter grade, I would rate it about A- (somewhere around a 92 perhaps). Why this high? Because despite its flaws, it DID work for me: it made me feel strongly and care strongly about the characters and their problems and the outcomes of their lives--and it made me continue to ponder them and the broader issues the film raised, not just for a few seconds or minutes or hours, but for several days after watching it. Not many films have had that strong an impact on me. THE MISSION did, and so did A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS (both with screenplays by Robert Bolt, who coincidentally also wrote the screenplay for LAWRENCE OF ARABIA). But not many other films have had this effect--so THE HUMAN STAIN is in very good company.

2/5 Amazingly bad
  by Kona (Emerald City)
Coleman Silk (Anthony Hopkins) is a highly respected college dean and professor. After one innocent remark is misinterpreted as a racist comment, he is forced to quit his job in disgrace. Coleman begins a strange affair with an aimless woman (Nicole Kidman) half his age, who has had a tragic past and isn't ready to return his love.

For me, this strange little movie was doomed from the start, when the big finish is shown right away. The rest of the story is shown in choppy, anti-climactic flashbacks (often out of order) which didn't allow for any build-up in tension or sympathy for the main character, Coleman. As a young man from New Jersey, he's played by Wentworth Miller who is quite charismatic and likeable, but looked and sounded nothing like the Welsh-accented adult Coleman (who sometimes appeared to channel a leering Hannibal Lector). Hopkins is so horribly miscast in this role that it's impossible to buy the racially-charged plot. Kidman was also completely wrong for this movie; her innate grace and elegance couldn't be hidden by a messy hairdo and I never bought her as an illiterate custodian. Her graphic love scenes with Hopkins were more creepy than romantic.

There is so much personal tragedy among the main characters - including Gary Sinise who plays a troubled writer and Ed Harris as a crazed Vietnam vet - and yet the movie misfires completely and I felt no connection with them or the whole premise of injustice. Afterward, I was left shaking my head at this surprising mess of a movie and just amazed that so much talent couldn't save it.

5/5 An Unraveling Life...
  by Laurel-Rain Snow - Raine- (Fresno, California)
A man has achieved great success academically, and then, while enjoying the fruits of such as a dean in a prestigious college, he makes a casual remark - something seemingly innocent - which is then perceived by two students as a racial slur.

Thus begins the unraveling of the man's career. In the stress of the aftermath, Professor Coleman Silk's wife Iris is felled by a heart attack and dies. And then, Silk (portrayed brilliantly by Anthony Hopkins) begins an unusual friendship with a reclusive writer, Nathan Zuckerman (Gary Sinise), who lives in a cabin by a lake on the outskirts of town. As Silk reminisces - the goal is that Zuckerman will write a book about Silk's life - many secrets, held inside for more than fifty years, are revealed to the viewer. But not to Zuckerman, apparently, because he is startled by the secrets at the very end of the film.

Some of what Silk confesses is portrayed for us through flashbacks; the secrets are portrayed via flashbacks as "memories". Then, almost as an aside, Silk describes an "affair" with a younger woman (Nicole Kidman): she is someone down-and-out, a former rich girl who ran away when she was being molested by a stepfather; and then, she becomes the abused wife of a Vietnam vet (Ed Harris), who stalks her and threatens her repeatedly. In the midst of this, Silk is the perceived redemptive hero (to himself, at least), but when townspeople learn of the affair, he is scorned again.

In the end, a surprising dramatic turn reveals, finally, to the characters in the story, the "secret" Silk kept close to him for all those years.

The Human Stain is a compelling movie that is based on the Philip Roth novel of the same name.

Laurel-Rain Snow
Author of:
Web of Tyranny, etc.


4/5 Human stain...
  by Michelle Polk (Mississippi, USA)
Very thought provoking.

It is about a man leaving his family (and color) to start a new life. For some reason he only falls for white women. Supposedly, he is so light that no one else can tell he is black. He only sneaks around to see his family.It is a strange movie but still thought provoking and deep.

3/5 Disconnected
  by Andrea Hawkins (Delaware, USA)
I have not read the book, but I will assume for now that it is much more balanced than the film. Overall, it was interesting but not as good as it probably could have been. Though I really enjoyed the flashbacks and think that Wentworth Miller is a great actor, the scenes didn't seem to have any connection to the scenes set in 1998. They were randomly placed, for the most part, so I felt like I was watching two different movies. Though I love Anthony Hopkins, I do agree that he should not have been cast as Coleman. He's just not believable as a black man passing for Jewish, and to top that, he and Wentworth are absolutely nothing alike. Some books aren't made to be adapted into films, and I'd have to say that this one falls under that category.