Word: lolitas
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Adrian Lyne's controversial film Lolita had the misfortune of arriving in a time when the sexual abuse of children has become an explosive societal issue. For all the hype that surrounded its 10-month saga to find an American distributor, Lolita is, in the end, surprisingly tame; those expecting child pornography or a trenchant critique of pedophilia are bound to be disappointed. Still, Lyne has done an admirable job with the challenge of adapting Vladimir Nabokov's famous novel for the screen. Overwhelming us with a cascade of lovely images, Lolita succeeds in being tragically moving despite the unsavory...
Following the obsession of 45-year-old Humbert Humbert (Jeremy Irons) with 12-year-old Dolores Haze (Dominique Swain) the girl Humbert dubs Lolita, the film shows Humbert doing everything in his power to be near her--even marrying Dolores' mother, Charlotte Haze (Melanie Griffith). Following Charlotte's death under questionable circumstances, Humbert takes off on a cross-country journey with his young love, only to find that he is being pursued by a mysterious stranger, Clare Quilty (Frank Langella...
...Lolita, Dominique Swain is a little too pouty; she chews gum and candy so perpetually and is so addicted to comic books that her character becomes rather tiresome. Similarly, Melanie Griffith, in the role of Dolores Haze, is so flaky that we are bored of her presence all too soon. Neither is a particularly likeable character, although this seems to have been a calculated move on Lyne's part. The effect of this is to turn our sympathies to Humbert, played perfectly by Jeremy Irons, whose expressive face beautifully conveys his longings and inner torment. Reserved and elegant, Irons' character...
...observations and feelings. Meanwhile, trivial occurrences in the film are occasionally represented in almost too much detail, from the making of an ice cream sundae to the zapping of bugs on a porch, as they might be in Humbert's fevered mind. Other times, the camera slows down Lolita's actions in running up the stairs, or playing tennis, in the same way that Nabokov's narrative draws out these occurrences in feverish detail through words...
...seduce the viewer into turning away from the moral problem of the film. Still, this is not such a bad thing. In a time when films so often try to say something about life, here is a film about the power of film. It is this which makes Lolita ultimately refreshing rather than shocking...