The Human Stain
dir. Robert Benton
Miramax Films

The Human Stain begins with an ending. Scandal cuts short the admirable career of New England classics professor Coleman Silk. It's just the first of many endings in the film — the end of eras, of marriages, of explanations, of secrets, the end of lives, the end of lies. This is a film about slowly dying, not through literal, physical deterioration, but through emptiness and loss and desperation. But it could have been a movie about a lot more than that.

The story is set rather obtrusively during the Monica Lewinsky fracas, a time long past in which scandal and petty political correctness ruled our attentions. So, when Coleman (Anthony Hopkins) looks at his attendance sheet and asks if two constant absentees are "spooks," and those students turn out to be black, the retribution is as swift as it is blind. Suddenly, Coleman becomes both a bitter retiree and an unexpected widower. And, just as suddenly, he takes on a new friend in a local author, Nathan Zuckerman (Gary Sinise), and a new lover in a damaged janitor, Faunia Farely (Nicole Kidman). (Coincidentally, the emotionally-damaged-female- janitor-at-a- college-as-metaphor- for-unfulfilled-potential thing is pretty popular this art-house season; it shows up again in My Life Without Me.) The affair sparks rumors and disapproval from Coleman's friends and enemies, none of whose opinions matter to him anymore. Faunia's life, lived in the shadow of a volatile former lover (Ed Harris), is sorrowful and dangerous. This would provide all of the drama in the relationship if it weren't for Coleman's past: His life, we learn, is itself a lie, a secret so much bigger and more real than the present scandal or even the present affair.

The Human Stain is big-cast, big-novel, big-director fare. Hopkins, Sinise, Kidman and Harris show up for work, with the latter two getting particularly juicy roles. Anna Deavere Smith, as an upset mother at once strong and weak, and Wentworth Miller, as a frustrated and sublimating young Coleman, are outstanding in supporting roles. The film was adapted from a best-selling Philip Roth novel, which itself confers instant respect. And Robert Benton, who wrote Bonnie and Clyde and directed Kramer vs. Kramer, returns to art-house esteem by directing this film and assembling amazing performances.

All that should really make this movie bigger and more important than it ultimately is. The themes should tie together better. The consequences should loom larger. The arguments should have greater complexity. As it is, it feels like the movie tries to have the best of all worlds, but doesn't seem like it's trying very hard. Coleman's secret past is immensely interesting, and would make a fine movie on its own. Faunia's past and her hostile ex are incredibly textured, and would make a fine movie on their own as well. The scandal-mongering of the late '90s was extremely insidious, and it has already given us quite a few fine movies.

But putting all three together isn't really the job of a movie; it's the job of a novel. The only storyline The Human Stain really explores is the first — which is fine, since it's the most interesting — but that means we only learn about Faunia's past through teary-eyed monologues, and that we only tangentially experience the scandals through mildly threatening notes and lines like, "People are starting to talk."

Stylistically, it makes sense. Less screen time helps diminish the scandal's importance in comparison with Coleman's past. But we see so little of it that it diminishes its own thematic importance, and the movie spends a great deal of energy setting up storylines and elements that get comparatively little payoff. It may work given time in a novel, but not in a two-hour film. Following Coleman's life all the way along, not just its beginning and end, could have made the movie work better as a movie; so could exposing his secret to the world of the film instead of just to the audience. At one point, Coleman's sister says doing just that would have instantly cleared up all the scandal and misunderstanding. Wrong. It would have made everything much more complicated, much more textured, much less black-and-white. As it is, we are left with a movie about two people whose lives have already ended clinging to each other for comfort. That's OK, but it shouldn't have ended there.

— Andy Ross (apross@earthlink.net)