Posted: 11/01/2003

The Human Stain

(2003)

by Hank Yuloff

Philip Roth’s novel is brought to the screen in masterful style.

It must be because I saw In The Cut yesterday that I realized right away what I liked about The Human Stain. Must have been the difference between a well acted story that made sense and one that couldn’t find it’s voice and who’s acting showed that confusion. Not that it is perfect, but The Human Stain is definitely worth the price of admission.

Coleman Silk (Anthony Hopkins) is an academic’s academic. He has worked hard to become a man of letters, and has been the dean of his department at a small college for three decades. As we find out during flashbacks in his life, he is a man with a secret that has been protected since his college days. It is this secret that causes Silk to leave his job when he is accused of racism. Without giving away that secret, I would say that I am surprised that he did not share that long sequestered information since his tenure and stature certainly would have survived the scrutiny and possibly ended the accusations.

After losing his wife to an aneurysm, Silk drifts aimlessly about, attempting to find new reasons for living. Enter Fauina Farely (Nicole Kidman), a woman in need of two or three 12-step programs and a psychologist specializing in self-worth issues. She has had a rough go of life and when she and Silk meet, she is holding on to three jobs while barely getting through her days.

The story of their life and courtship is told with flashbacks in Silk’s life and through the painful pulling of details by Hopkins from Kidman. They each have mighty demons that accompany their every hour, and though Silk has had many more years to handle them, he is not always able to hide their effects in his daily routines.

The acting was great. Best of all was Wentworth Miller (Dinotopia—TV) who plays a young Coleman Silk, struggling with his background to succeed. He learns early on that his background will be an issue in his life when he introduces a girlfriend (and probable fiancé) to his past and he is rejected. Nicole Kidman (who, by the way produced In The Cut) plays Farely in such a way that made me try and decide if it would be worth dating someone that beautiful that had more luggage on board than cruise ship. Hopkins is always wonderful, but I do question his casting for the part. When you learn all of the secret he keeps, I had a hard time seeing it in the character he plays. But he is worth watching.

Gary Sinise (Forrest Gump, Reindeer Games, The Green Mile) plays a writer that Silk befriends in an attempt to help him write an autobiography. His class and style shows the type of friends that Silk has gathered in his life. Ed Harris (The Right Stuff, Pollack, A Beautiful Mind, The Hours) plays Farely’s abusive ex-marine ex-husband which shows the type of people she has had to deal with in hers. Between the two, they have been in 55 movies over the past decade and though they have one scene at the end of the movie that has no place in the film, they did play their parts well.

Director Robert Benton (Twilight, Nobody’s Fool) is quite used to working with top level talent and is to be commended for getting the most out of his cast. We find that The Human Stain is not a physical thing, but those things which can effect any of us to take a different (not necessarily wrong) road in life.

Hank Yuloff watches lots of films in L.A.

Got a problem? E-mail us at filmmonthly@gmail.com