director : adrian lyne writer : stephen schiff ( based on the novel by vladimir nabokov ) starring : jeremy irons , dominique swain , melanie griffith , frank langella much ballyhoo has been made over this new version of " lolita , " made in a time when one would think that a faithful adaptation of the infamous novel could be made , over its use of pedophilia , and as such , it's important to address it straight-forwardly , before any other ideals such as goodness and themes can be discussed , as this film has been in film limbo for a number of years , lying around in vaults san a distributor , and having critics waiting to either hail it a masterpiece or call it anticlimactic horseshit . when seeing this film , after all the hoopla , keeping in mind that there are people , namely me , who are fans of the novel , who have been eagerly awaiting this flick since its creation . . . well , you just have to wonder why no one really picked it up for distribution . what's even worse is that seeing this " lolita , " especially the first time and if you're familiar with anything " lolita , " is admittingly very anticlimactic . this is a real pity because when you really sit down to watch this film , ignoring all the crap that has preceeded it , it's really quite a film , perhaps the best film by director adrian lyne ( although , really , look at its competition : " flashdance , " " fatal attraction , " and " indecent proposal " ) , at least besides " jacob's ladder . " i've seen this " lolita " twice : the first time , i wasn't so blown away . it seemed overly dramatic and surprisingly unaffecting . the second time , not really thinking about how i've waited for what seems like forever to see it and how i'm seeing it on a tv set on a premium cable channel and not a giant movie theatre , it really affected me emotionally . the story itself is a surprisingly heartbreaking one , which is why it's such a good novel , and why this is such a good film . the story of a pedophile obsessed with a young 14-year old girl named dolores a . k . a . lolita is great because it's not trash for the perverted but because it's about human obsession with things that are out of one's reach . its protagonist , the comically-named humbert humbert , is not your average pedophile , but a seriously wounded human being who embodies how we are all destroyed by our sick obsessions and idosyncrasies . the character of lolita is almost a symbol of the forbidden apple in christian mythology , something that will destroy us but that we can't live without . these ideas are all worked into this film nicely , but done in a way that is not heavy-handed at all , but instead lyrical and emotionally devastating . the focus of this film , and the reason for making it , it seems , was to really penetrate the emotional depths of the novel and bring them to life on the screen in beautifully dramatic images , and scenes which are blatantly over-stylized . the tone of the book is a comical one , but it's also a tragic one , and humbert , telling the story from his perspective , blows every single thing out of perspective . humbert exists in a fantsy world of his obsessions and desires , and this reflects the way the entire film has been designed . we get a sense that perhaps it's by doing this that humbert has really trapped himself into a fate that will ultimately leave him haggard and destroyed . he weeps uncontrollably and never lets himself get over his original 14-year-old love , and allows himself to embody her as lolita . he lets his feelings for her navigate all his decisions , and by the end , he has nothing but overly-dramatic feelings for her . the story recognizes the extreme of this , almost out of a test , seeing if the readers will really sympathize with someone who is socially deemed a pervert , and one almost wonders while reading the book if the author , vladimir nabokov , wrote the book as a means to bring into focus his own sick obsessions , and perhaps bring them to peace . the weirdest thing about this film is that by the end , when humbert has reached the finale of his obsessional journey , we can easily sympathize and even identify with him . the opening and final images of the film are the same , and who hasn't done a similar action , that is wandering about without any sense of reality or anything else but a deep sadness in us ? this is the second time the novel has been adapted for the screen , the first time being filmed in - shock - 1962 , by stanley kubrick , who couldn't possibly have brought the novel to the screen with as much faithfulness as lyne has been able to do , but did the next best thing : he economized for everything and came up with a droll black comedy about obsession in general . in that film , he used the traps of society as benefits . the studio demanded the final scene , that of a heinous murder , come first in the film so to portray humbert first as a murderer and second as a pedophile . . . and when you see it , it gives the film depth of a man trapped by obsession . the censors wouldn't allow anymore than a couple glances and subtle dialogue to show the , um , relationship between humbert and lolita , so kubrick decided to play it as comedy , but still allow the tragedy to seep through . looking at these two versions , especially after reading the novel ( and we all know that when we've read a novel and see a film adaptation , we are bound to be angered by any size differences ) , it's really impossible to compare them . they both go for different things , and one has a lot more room to be as sexually frank as the novel was . and although it's true that several scenes are similar , and are thus up for comparison , overall it's unfair to say which one is better and which one is worse . i have never been one for saying the level of greatness of a film adaptation of a novel is deemed by how faithful it is , and i won't say that here . however , this film is pretty amazing , mostly because hey , i loved the book , and this film nearly reminded me of it . it doesn't have nearly as much wit ( a couple comical scenes , and even a lot of good chuckles , but just not totally witty ) , but it does have the same emotional toll that the novel had . some of that is in the casting of the two leads . jeremy irons , with his deep , soft british voice and gentle look , is an amazing humbert . he's droll in a very unique way , and , well , no one can look distraught the way he does . he brings a wonderful sympathy to the role that goes beyond pathos and really comes up as being easy to identify with the audience . and when he looks at lolita with love , and she looks at him with lust , you know that he's her prisoner for as long as he lives . and dominique swain , who plays the title character , is rather incredible . she pulls off the tough role even better than sue lyon did in the original , wonderfully balancing the qualities of seduction , bratiness , and self-centeredness that marks the character . it's easy to see why she surrenders to humbert : she loves the attention , and knows that she can have her way with him at any time . when he denies her something , she blackmails him effortlessly ( a scene involving a rocking chair and a little foot action is damn near classic ) , and when he stands up to her , she weeps and runs away , leaving humbert to follow her . there are two other minor characters in the film , one who's a road block in the beginning , and the other who's a reappearing threat to the relationship . the former is charlotte , lolita's mother , played by melanie griffith . in the book , charlotte is a monster of a woman : overbearing , constantly scolding her child , overly-religious , and ultimately selfish . and she's the one obstacle humbert has to overcome to obtain his goal , at least in the beginning . as played by shelly winters in the original , she represented all these qualities ; as played by griffith here , she's about half of them . it's annoying to watch a film and play a game where you try to see who could have done the role way better than the one on screen without mentioning the actor who played them first . and even though griffith is not really bad , persay , she's nothing more . the other is clare quilty , the writer who is also trying to seduce lolita , and succeeds , but at a price . langella takes a totally different direction than the one peter sellars took in the original . quilty was a comic character in the original : a threat in the form of many forms , popping in states of rambling , german , proning , and eventually drunk . langella takes the other route , allowing all of the creepiness to be unearthed , and the result is a character who exists in shadows and low shots , and who meets a wonderfully ironic ending , the exact opposite of what we thought of him . as you can see , most of these are not improvements or mistakes done on the part of lyne and his screenwriter , stephen schiff , but just parts of a whole new look at the novel , at least cinema-wise . this version is beautiful , and perpetually saddening . the camera movements are stylized , and each shot is breathtakingly rich . the acting is for the most part wonderful , and when we watch it , we really get a sense that for humbert , who is telling the story , the only two people on earth most of the time were humbert and lolita . more importantly , it takes us right up the brink of emotion , then jumps right over it . by the end , with humbert sadly driving recklessly in his car , following what he says is the only part of his life he doesn't regret , we feel that we all lose to something we can never have . 
