The Good: Early tone, Moments of acting
The Bad: Inconsistent characterization, Execution of plot, Resolution
The Basics: Lolita is a clearly sub-par film fails to be interesting in that it is too inconsistent.
If you're expecting Lolita to be an enjoyable sexual thriller, you're in for a big disappointment. In fact, if you're some righteous pervert, hoping to see some young flesh like all of those e-mails your Hotmail account keeps getting then this, too, is the wrong film for you. After all, there are international laws and this is not Holland. Thus, the fifteen year old girl playing Dolores (Lolita) is never seen in any real state of undress. In fact, up until the last ten minutes, there's so little actually on screen that outside the theme and the tension, a PG rating is more appropriate. No kidding. And in the last ten minutes, all the nudity is male.
So, Lolita is about a writer/professor who has basically aged while searching for the deceased love of his life. That process has led Humbert Humbert to view girls (not women) as sexually accessible and more desirable than their older counterparts because they more closely resemble his lost love. To that end, he is summering with Charlotte Haze and Humbert encounters her daughter, Dolores. Dolores is a rambunctious child, spontaneous, annoying. She's thirteen and she's being sent to summer camp, though she clearly has an attraction to Humbert. As a necessity to keep Dolores in his life, Humbert marries Charlotte and things are going well until Charlotte dies in a freak accident leaving Humbert and Dolores thrown together.
What follows is an hour and a half of Dolores and Humbert driving around. Dolores is tedious and annoying, Humbert goes from being compassionate and lusty to obsessive and brooding. The characters don't so much as follow sensible arcs either as they change abruptly. Dolores is clearly disturbed going one moment from being fun to screaming to bratty. She seems to accept and enjoy things, then wigs out on a hairtrigger. Humbert goes from having a reasonable story (man in love) to simple flat-charactered pedophile quicker than you can say "not only 'statutory' rape."
The plot could have been good, but the characters make it impossible to execute well. Humbert turns out to be rather an idiot, reaching the obvious conclusion for one of the main plot points only when it is told to him. This leads directly to the ending and it's pretty sad because of the time lapses that occur between the plot event and its resolution. I refuse to ruin the surprise of what that is.
The resolution, though is unsatisfying. Going from Humbert having to be told the obvious to his action and then an ending that stops about two minutes too early, leaving the final resolution to be told rather than shown.
In the end, Lolita isn't titillating, it's not entertaining. It's not even terribly disturbing. Well, it is, but not for the reasons the filmmakers want it to be. It's disturbing because it's inconsistent, poorly executed and often confused. This is a film not worth your time. Were it not for the directing and occasional moments in Jeremy Irons (Humbert) and Swain's (Dolores) acting, I'd say avoid it entirely.
For other movies that explore sexuality, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Love And Other Drugs
American Beauty
Friends With Benefits
3/10
For other movie reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!
© 2011, 2002 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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