The Human Stain

8 April 2019

The Human Stain 2003

• Director: Robert Benton
• Based on the novel by Philip Roth
• Cast: Nicole Kidman, Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Gary Sinise, Wentworth Miller, Jacinda Barrett, Anna Deavere Smith, Harry Lennix, Clark Gregg, Margo Martindale, Ron Canada
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Nicole Kidman – Top of the Lake, Genius, Queen of the Desert, Strangerland, Before I Go to Sleep, The Railway Man, Rabbit Hole, Nine, Australia, Margo at the Wedding, Fur, The Interpreter, Cold Mountain, Dogville, The Hours, Panic Room, The Birthday Girl, The Others, Moulin Rouge, Eyes Wide Shut, Practical Magic, Batman Forever, Billy Bathgate
• Anthony Hopkins – Thor, Bobby, Proof, Titus, Meet Joe Black, Amistad, Surviving Picasso, Nixon, The Remains of the Day, Dracula, Howards End, The Silence of the Lambs, 84 Charing Cross Road, Othello, The Elephant Man
• Ed Harris – Cymbeline, Snowpiercer, Gone Baby Gone, Copying Beethoven, A History of Violence, The Hours, A Beautiful Mind, Pollock, Nixon, Glengarry Glen Ross, Swing Shift
• Gary Sinise – The Green Mile, Ransom, Forrest Gump, Of Mice and Men
• Wentworth Miller – Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Jacinda Barrett – The Namesake
• Anna Deavere Smith – Nurse Jackie, Rachel Getting Married, Rent, Philadelphia
• Harry Lennix – Man of Steel, Across the Universe, Ray, Matrix, Titus, Clockers
• Clark Gregg – Much Ado about Nothing, Thor, The Usual Suspects
• Margo Martindale – August Osage County, Beautiful Creatures, Paris je t’aime, The Hours, 28 Days, Practical Magic, Marvin’s Room, Dead Man Walking
• Ron Canada – The United States of Leland, The X Files
• Why? The novel and the cast
• Seen: Once previously. Now 6 April 2019 with Hal and YW in our read-the-book-see-the-film group      

       Philip Roth’s books are complex (some are unreadable.) His characters are complex. This book was not easy to read. YW didn’t get through it. It took more than two months for me and Hal.

       We saw the film long ago, before we knew it was based on a Roth novel, before we had ever read anything by Roth. We thought it was unexpectedly good.

       Literature professor and college Dean Coleman Silk (Hopkins) resigns over a scandal in which he is accused of racism for using the word spooks to describe two students who had never come to his class. Never having seen them he did not know they were black. All of this is ironic because he himself is of African-American descent and has passed as a white Jew for more than forty years.

       College custodian Faunia Farley (Kidman) has a tragic past and a violent abusive Vietnam veteran ex-husband (Harris).

       As with Roth’s American Pastoral this is narrated by the author Nathan Zuckerman (Sinese). Why this is I don’t understand and Sinese is woefully miscast. That and boring unnecessary nude scenes (of the women of course) are flaws in an otherwise strong movie. It’s quite a good adaption of the novel. Hopkins is always Hopkins, Kidman is at her best. The photography by Jean-Yves Escoffier (he died the year the film was made, and it is dedicated to him) is fantastic.

4½ * of 5 (we agreed)