Word: silke
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...midst of the 1998 Lewinsky sex scandal, Coleman Silk (Anthony Hopkins), a distinguished classics professor at a small Massachusetts liberal arts college, embroils himself in a microcosm of similar scandal and tragedy: one chance comment in class provokes an accusation of racism that culminates in his resignation and the death of his wife. Based on the novel by Philip Roth, The Human Stain follows Silk through four major stages of self-identification: anger, denial, acceptance and confession. A self-made man in every sense of the word, Silk’s success in life embodies a severely warped version...
...midst of the 1998 Lewinsky sex scandal, Coleman Silk (Anthony Hopkins), a distinguished classics professor at a small Massachusetts liberal arts college, embroils himself in a microcosm of similar scandal and tragedy: one chance comment in class provokes an accusation of racism that culminates in his resignation and the death of his wife. Based on the novel by Philip Roth, The Human Stain follows Silk through four major stages of self-identification: anger, denial, acceptance and confession. A self-made man in every sense of the word, Silk’s success in life embodies a severely warped version...
Much like Silk himself, the film is a prisoner of its own ambitions; it falls victim to its literal devotion to Roth’s novel. In any case, The Human Stain is a story better left in print...
Hopkins is almost convincing as the tragic hero Coleman Silk, Kidman less so as the battered Farely—now defiantly smoking in Silk’s car, now cowering in fear of her psychopathic ex-husband, Lester (a grizzled and frightening Ed Harris). Both actors seem hampered by the hefty burdens imposed on their characters, while director Robert Benton—whose previous work includes the multiple Oscar-winner Kramer vs. Kramer—has the impression that gratuitous nudity is a sufficient replacement for any semblance of a coherent plot line...
Much like Silk himself, Benton’s film is a prisoner of its own ambitions; it falls victim to its literal devotion to Roth’s novel. For most of its meandering minutes, The Human Stain remains as glacial as its scenery, too cool and too detached; it never packs a genuine emotional, much less social or political, punch. Even Farely’s bitter tears, shed as she mourns the wreck of her life, fail to generate much sympathy for her character. Perhaps it’s the uneven pacing; perhaps it’s the inherently...