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The Human Stain
(Reviewed October 31, 2003)
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I can't remember the last time so many genuinely good actors found themselves in such an utterly preposterous movie. The plot and characters in "The Human Stain" are so unconvincing that you will wonder if the thing was supposed to have been played as an outright farce instead of a high-minded Oscar-bait drama.
The media probably has ruined the movie's big twist for you already, but just in case you didn't get the word I won't blow the surprise. Suffice it to say that Hopkins is not exactly what he seems to be...and that this is the biggest problem with the movie. Basically, what we are expected to swallow about him is howlingly, comically unbelievable. It's the kind of thing that may work perfectly well in a book, which lets readers create their own mental pictures, but not in a movie whose every frame betrays the all-important premise.
It is similarly hard to buy a romance between the just-this-side-of-elderly Hopkins and the considerably-more-than-a-generation-younger Nicole Kidman. That love affair is such a stretch that it almost makes going along with the giggle-inducing idea of Kidman as a white-trash cow-milking janitor possible. Well, not really.
The normally excellent Gary Sinise is wasted as a secluded writer Hopkins befriends, because he is put in situations that are flat-out silly but only unintentionally funny. When Hopkins grabs Sinise out of a chair to ballroom-dance the poor guy around to the strains of "Cheek to Cheek" for what seems like an eternity of screen time, the audience doesn't know whether to shake its collective head in pity or shuffle in shock to the nearest exit.
Ed Harris is good as Kidman's vengeful ex, because his character is evil in a strange don't-give-a-damn-honest way that makes him, if nothing else, unique.
The movie gets points for trying to say something about this country's sorry slide into political correctness, but not enough of them to make it worth seeing.
Back Row Grade: D
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