Gary Dretzka
Leonard Klady
David Poland
Ray Pride
Patricia Vidal

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FINALLY, there is a movie that just plain stinks, in spite of some strong performances and a director who I really respect. The film is Human Stain. And anyone who has tried to tell you that this is an Oscar movie of any kind is, with due respect, just plain wrong.

Someone had told me weeks ago that this adaptation of the Philip Roth novel completely removed the element of Anthony Hopkins character hiding his race. This was both true and false. The film I saw is two films in one. There is one about a young black man who decides to hide his race behind very fair skin. Then there is the one you have seen advertised, about an aging man who has an affair with a young mysterious beauty. The first film is, in my eyes, a better one than the second. But it has no movie stars in it. The story of Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman simply makes no specific reference to him as a "closeted" black man until a coda at the end. Hopkins' character gets Jew-baited repeatedly. But how this secret affects him, as an aging man, remains more faint than any stain.

But that is only part of the problem. Gary Sinise does a voice over right out of the "Worst of Miramax" desk drawer. Ed Harris does a game job as The Psycho, but he deserves more to work with. Kidman actually does some really nice work here, but it is wasted on the nonsensical screenplay. And Hopkins does nothing to embarrass - or distinguish - himself here.

by David Poland

The Human Stain
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Director: Robert Benton
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Distributor: Miramax
Year: 2003
Time: 106 minutes

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Principal Cast: Sir Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Ed Harris, Gary Sinise

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Production Company: Lakeshore Entertainment
Executive Producer: Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein, Ron Bozman, Andre Lamal, Rick Schwartz, Steve Hutensky, Michael Ohoven, Eberhard Kayser
Producer: Tom Rosenberg, Gary Lucchesi, Scott Steindorff
Screenplay: Nicholas Meyer, based on the book by Philip Roth
Cinematography: Jean Yves Escoffier
Editor: Christopher Tellefsen
Production Designer: David Gropman
Sound: Claude Le Haye, Warren Shaw
Music: Rachel Portman