The Human Stain (2003)

Directed by: Robert Benton | 106 minutes | drama, romance, thriller | Actors: Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Ed Harris, Gary Sinise, Wentworth Miller, Jacinda Barrett, Harry J. Lennix, Clark Gregg, Anna Deavere Smith, Lizan Mitchell, Kerry Washington, Phyllis Newman, Margo Martindale, Ron Canada, Mili Avital

The Human Stain is based on a novel by American author Philip Roth. Based on a summary of the book, director Robert Benton has taken the story structure fairly faithfully. We are faced with the resignation of a university professor and that has a deeper background. There is a narrator and there are many flashbacks to this Coleman Silk’s childhood. The young Silk turns out to be a bonkers, and also a talented amateur boxer, who wants to succeed in society at all costs. As the person he is, of course, and not because of the group he belongs to, because despite his white features, he has black parents. In order to become who he wants to be, he even severs family ties.

With this in mind, we look at the old Coleman Silk. That’s difficult. Hopkins bears no resemblance to the charming youngster played by Wentworth Miller. By spreading the flashbacks, the viewer is also presented with only fragments that never become one image; Half way through the movie you don’t know where it’s going. Unfortunately, the promising fact that a retired professor, who spends his life trying to hide the fact that he’s actually black (kinda strange to take Anthony Hopkins for that, but hey), starts a relationship with a millionaire daughter who has lost everything. hanging in the air: the moment the two life stories actually intersect, the story comes to a halt due to a dramatic development and we as viewers have to make do with a kind of retelling by Nathan Zuckerman (Gary Sinise), a friend of Silk who acts as narrator. is somewhat forced in the film. You would like to know more about Faunia’s backgrounds and motives and how that would eventually clash with Coleman’s life story.

What remains is a story in shards and the desire to read the book. Perhaps the biggest problem is the casting of Anthony Hopkins, who is mysteriously silent at key moments in the film and mismatches the image of the young Silk. Emotionally, the old Silk remains a closed book. The focus is therefore on Nicole Kidman, who puts on a top performance as a tormented, cool seductress and doesn’t have to say much to draw attention to herself. There’s also nothing wrong with the chemistry between Kidman and Hopkins. The beautiful camera work and the dark, wintry atmosphere in which the whole thing takes place make the session of more than one and a half hours pleasant, but the whole thing does not all fall into place.