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The Human Stain
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- Stars
- Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Ed Harris, Gary Sinise, Wentworth Miller
- Director
- Robert Benton
- Language
- English
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Movie Reviews from Rotten Tomatoes®
One of those films that makes you say, 'That was powerful. Now what the hell was it about?'
Full Review|Nov 3, 2003
The Human Stain takes a complex work of literary art and reduces it to tasteful melodrama.
Full Review|Nov 1, 2003The stain of seriousness spreads over everything in this movie, eventually blocking out everything but the effort.
Full Review|Oct 31, 2003When Kidman's on screen, the film catches fire. Otherwise, it remains unignited.
Full Review|Oct 31, 2003Nicole Kidman as a milkmaid leading a hardscrabble existence? If you say so.
Full Review|Oct 31, 2003A platinum-class production that tackles the major hot-button issue of American racism and yet somehow never manages to connect emotionally either through its main characters or story.
Oct 31, 2003Benton, miraculously, has achieved the worst of both worlds. He has laid bare a great author's creaky plotting only to deliver a melodrama with bookish pretensions.
Full Review|Oct 31, 2003The movie is fully worthy of the book, and will reach many people who might not have enjoyed the delightful experience of gliding through Mr. Roth's trenchant and zestful prose on the human condition.
Full Review|Oct 30, 2003The Human Stain strains too hard for profundity and comes up borderline pompous.
Full Review|Oct 30, 2003What's shattering is the utterly graceless way the book has been adulterated, condensed, simplified and made rather pointless.
Full Review|Oct 30, 2003Between the labors of simplifying the story for the screen and accommodating the stardust of world-class actors, an essentially, uniquely American tragic hero and heroine are bleached of real American tragedy.
Full Review|Oct 29, 2003The Human Stain is heavy going. It's the flashes of dramatic lightning that make it a trip worth taking.
Sep 25, 2003The acting is phenomenal (especially Harris), and the film will be a nice challenge for those in search of one.
Full Review|Jun 20, 2005A tricky adaptation of an unlikely novel that nevertheless goes almost as wrong as possible...prey to the most amateur varieties of structural and tonal errors.
Full Review|Aug 28, 2004Alem das pessimas escalacoes de Hopkins e Kidman, que simplesmente nao convencem em seus papeis, o filme ainda sofre em funcao do roteiro sem foco de Meyer.
Feb 11, 2004The Human Stain is an interesting film that doesn't quite work. [It] is probably the best film version possible of what is essentially an unfilmable work.
Jan 1, 2004Even when The Human Stain founders, the skill and professionalism of those trying to communicate Philip Roth's mood is undeniable.
Dec 5, 2003Works wonderfully as an actor's movie. The trouble is, that's the only way it works.
Oct 31, 2003But audiences truly fascinated with the issues it touches upon -- class and sex, race and identity -- would be better off to search out the source material that delves into them deeply.
Full Review|Oct 31, 2003It's a respectable effort that doesn't quite gel, but not for lack of trying.
Full Review|Oct 31, 2003The filmmakers explicate Mr. Roth's themes with admirable clarity and care and observe his characters with delicate fondness, but they cannot hope to approximate the brilliance and rapacity of his voice.
Full Review|Oct 30, 2003Benton and Mayer have gutted the novel's uncivil, discomforting viscera -- including Roth's pokes at political correctness -- and delivered an uninteresting, at times comically inappropriate 'tasteful' story.
Full Review|Oct 30, 2003Never jells as compelling or satisfying drama.
Oct 30, 2003The Human Stain has those qualities we often want but rarely see in our films: intelligence and ambition, decency and humanity, poetry and pity, fire and ice.
Full Review|Oct 30, 2003Undemanding viewers will probably find enough intriguing material here to make it worth a look, but I was too disappointed by the wasted potential to be enthusiastic.
Full Review|Oct 28, 2003One of the most underrated pictures of 2003.
Dec 17, 2004a well-acted misfire...
Feb 28, 2004Tries to hedge its bets by doing a conscious balancing act between page and screen, and ends up doing justice to neither.
Dec 31, 2003As airless as a museum gallery where guards shush those who speak above a whisper...
Dec 5, 2003It is hard to buy what The Human Stain is peddling.
Nov 1, 2003The problem is that neither Kidman nor Hopkins seems to know what movie they are in.
Oct 31, 2003The acting here is terrific, which is no surprise, as Benton is a great director of actors. And this is a true ensemble, with no one person outshining anyone else.
Full Review|Oct 31, 2003A compelling, sexy and often moving film.
Oct 31, 2003It neatly illustrates the perils of kidnapping a decent novel from its rightful home and exposing the vulnerable thing to the glare of a Hollywood camera.
Full Review|Oct 31, 2003It's a well-intended failure. Benton may have been trying for an American tragedy, but it's possible he wound up with a sympathy card instead.
Oct 31, 2003Even when miscast, [Hopkins and Kidman] are capable of spellbinding performances.
Full Review|Oct 30, 2003The first hour of their movie is quite fine, at times poignant, but ultimately the filmmakers give us a love triangle that all but erases one of its legs.
Oct 30, 2003Roth may be a brilliant writer -- he's got the prizes to prove it -- but he doesn't create brilliant characters (especially female ones), and his plots work better on the page than on the screen.
Full Review|Oct 30, 2003The nerviest prestige picture of the season is fatally undone by a Clintonian mixture of misplaced care and bizarre expediency.
Full Review|Oct 28, 2003The thriller aspects of the story and the overall solid level of acting -- including a sexy performance from a red-hot Nicole Kidman -- keep the audience interested but never fully emotionally involved.
Sep 4, 2003Both Nicole Kidman and Anthony Hopkins are vastly miscast in Robert Benton's poor adaptation of Philip Roth's poignant novel, one of the few works about contempo academic battlefields.
Full Review|Aug 2, 2007The film's frame groans in its attempt to contain such a complex story, and its actors ask us to accept implausible things... but it's ultimately rewarding.
Full Review|Dec 6, 2004In an obvious stretch, Kidman's acting calls attention to itself, especially with her broad gestures.
Full Review|Apr 9, 2004Watching Kidman mop floors impressed me with same effect as seeing George W. Bush fly a fighter jet.
Full Review|Feb 24, 2004A valiant attempt to bring a difficult book (Philip Roth's The Human Stain) to the screen that's undermined by the added distraction of Nicole Kidman as a char lady.
Full Review|Feb 2, 2004With all the legs flailing, earnest speechifying, hot-headed outbursts, and mild abuse of crockery, Robert Benton's adaptation feels more like a fat Greek wedding than an Ancient Greek tragedy.
Full Review|Dec 23, 2003Though Hollywood seems intent on adapting every well-received novel, some stories just don't translate well to the big screen.
Full Review|Nov 24, 2003
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