MOVIE REVIEW

Human Stain, The  (2003)

Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Ed Harris
Director: Robert Benton

Rating: R

Studio: Miramax

Release Date: 10.31.03

Review Posted: 10.31.03

Spoilers: Minor

By Sara M. Fetters

Benton’s "Stain" Only Paints the Surface

If a person refuses their own heritage, disregards their past, can their future be a content and fulfilling one? Or does a cloud hang over them, perpetually closing them off from all those around them, including their friends and loved ones? A life as a lie is of no use, especially to the person trying to live it.

Yet, that is exactly what renowned professor of classical literature Coleman Silk (Anthony Hopkins) has based his life on. To everyone who knows him, including his loving wife, he’s a man of stern intellect and character, unforgiving to those that do not show the sort of care and respect he sternly demands. But this type of unbending fortitude has not made him any allies on the college’s review board, and after a ghostly statement during a lecture is grossly misinterpreted, the celebrated teacher is forced to resign in pseudo-disgrace.

After a secondary tragedy leaves Coleman suddenly single, the enraged educator seeks out reclusive writer Nathan Zuckerman (Gary Sinise) to tell the story of his wrongful termination. But instead of doing that, the duo instead strike up an unlikely friendship, the two men realizing just how much life still has to offer both of them due to this new found camaraderie. In fact, Coleman starts feeling such good will towards the author he even reveals he’s having an affair with a much younger woman, loving every single moment of it.

Compared to Coleman, school janitor Faunia Farley (Nicole Kidman) is decidedly from the wrong side of the tracks. Her husband, Lester (Ed Harris), is an abusive ex-military grunt who blames Faunia for the fiery death of their children. Seeing her alone is enough to send him into fits of rage; seeing her with Coleman is enough to take him a step beyond. Nathan urges his friend to end the affair, sure that this relationship of broken souls can only end in tragedy.

Coleman won’t have it. This is the most pure connection he’s made since the love of his life Steena (Jacinda Barrett) left him nearly fifty years earlier. It was then he decided to bury a major part of himself from the world, electing to live a lie with an eye towards respectability and prominence instead of taking the opposite road – even if that road is lined with the truth. But it is this lie that ironically costs Coleman his job, maybe even led to the death of his beloved wife, and now it is only the truth that can bring a sorrowful restfulness to his weary soul.

Based on the acclaimed and controversial novel by Philip Roth, Robert Benton’s “The Human Stain” should be one of the most provocative films of the year. In some ways it is. The “Kramer vs. Kramer” and “Nobody’s Fool” director knows how to handle complex emotional issues delicately and with panache, and this movie is no exception. A scene where Coleman utters the word “spook” to a tired gaggle of students is eerie in its foreboding belligerence, Hopkins forcing the word through his lips as if they are stuck there in buttery lucid bondage. Benton has a knack for this kind of stuff, and this is just the type of movie that should showcase it.

Yet, “The Human Stain” never achieves the earth-shattering power it is obviously reaching for. It is a potent film in many ways, straining ever so hard for profundity, but only scratches the surface of the story’s potential. Part of the problem is screenwriter Nicholas Meyer can’t quite find a rhythm to Coleman’s story, going forward and backward through time seemingly more because it is the cool thing to do than because it helps the picture. It doesn’t help that Harris and Sinise are stranded with characters so thinly written we’re left only with the ability to classify them as “villain” and “saint,” respectively, and if the duo manage to make their time on screen even remotely memorable it has more to do with their talents as actors than anything else.

But the movie’s most blatant flaw is the unfortunately miscasting of central players Hopkins and Kidman. Hopkins, delivering his lines with pugilistic intensity, is all wrong as the flawed Coleman Silk. He’s never believable in the role, and while I’m all for suspending belief in a feature film, the writer’s conceit is such that it is almost impossible to not hold the actor’s own heritage and body of work against him once the central secret is revealed. While I’m sure that’s unfair, the fact I realize it doesn’t make Hopkins any less wrong for the part, Coleman requiring an actor not so quite entrenched in film resonance.

Faring only slightly better is Kidman. A wondrous actress, she’s both the best and worst thing “The Human Stain” has going for it. Her Faunia is a wounded animal, feral and almost completely unhinged in her ferocious emotional disconnectedness. Kidman mines deep for this character, revealing depths the script only hints at. The problem is, while I loved the acting I never once believed in the character. Benton shoots the actress, working with her for the first time since her Golden Globe-nominated turn in the director’s “Billy Bathgate,” in full movie star glow. The lighting and makeup for the actress is immaculate, making Kidman’s performance something akin to grunge beautify. Too be honest, I’m not entirely sure the actress is miscast, but the way Benton showcases her with such glamorous authority it is impossible to forget it is Kidman playing the character. Faunia is a role an actor should disappear in to. That doesn’t begin to happen here.

There is, however, much to admire and respect about “The Human Stain.” Both Barrett and Wentworth Miller – playing the young Coleman – are extraordinary. It is their story that shapes the path of Coleman’s life and the duo has a chemistry that’s almost rapturous, making their eventual separation even more difficult to bear. Harry Lennix and Anna Deavere Smith also turn in brief, effective performances, bringing an air of believability to the proceedings the picture sorely needs. Best of all, a rapturous scene between Sinise and Hopkins as they dance on the latter’s deck is as blissfully sincere a moment I’ve seen on screen all year, the truth and heart evident in this one sequence all the more effervescent because of its absence elsewhere in the film.

But the picture just doesn’t cut it. The main characters, for all the trouble I had believing the actors in the roles, disappear far too early, “The Human Stain” trudging towards its conclusion with all the subtlety of a funeral dirge. And where a scene between Sinise and Harris should leave the viewer with an uncomfortable sense of creepy lamentation, all I found myself feeling was a sense of relief that the movie was almost over - not the best emotion to send on audience home with on any occasion.

Rating: êê  (out of 4)

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