That Wanton Nymph

Lolita is a tale about a 40 something year old man who falls in love with a 13 year old girl, there is little humour in such a serious situation, and while Kubrick's 1962 version addressed the severity of the subject, to some level he also played the subject for laughs, restrictions of that time in cinema history being a likely cause. 9 ½ Weeks director Adrian Lyne took Vladamir Nabakov's novel and played it out far more accurately, while there is humour, its playful humour as part of the seduction of the two leads; falling in love with a minor is a serious subject and Lyne's version fully appreciates this choosing to avoid cheap quaffs, and giving more focus to Lolita's sexuality.

Lolita after a fairly whimsical opening gets down to the raw intensity of the story quickly, from the flirtations, and the dismissal of the same flirtations, it suddenly erupts into a sexual romance between the two. Lolita's sexual wants, and a combination of her willingness to experience a world of sex beyond Hubert, soon turns this movie down a very dark passage as the two characters relationship turns sinisterly volatile. Passion makes way for paranoia and this is an aspect that Jeremy Irons as an actor is so incredibly good at, despite how badly he might handle a variety of other emotions.

But it's the creepy Clare Quilty played by one time Skeletor (Masters Of The Universe) Frank Langella that makes this movie so incredibly dark. Most of the movie he is hardly seen, muttering away words in the dark, playing a character who could easily be the devil; Langella does bad so incredibly well and this is a darkness that the late Peter Sellers simply could not deliver in the 1962 original. Quilty like Humbert is drawn into a creepy dark world like Humbert was, taking the movies final moments down a dark path that makes everything else in the movie seem pale in comparison.

Lolita is far from being what I would class as a good movie; it's fairly long, its story drawn out. But it's an acceptable movie; it shows you a world you know exists though might not want to admit too. I have seen the movie 3 times since its release, the recent viewing being the most tired looking. This being said I remember being inspired to some level by it 10 years ago during a first viewing; it's a film that deserves to be seen but not necessarily more than once.

A featurette made during filming looks at the movie, but draws no comparisons to previous movie almost as if it's saying Kubrick's version never existed.