 Tagline: How Far Would You Go To Escape The Past? Academy AwardŽ winners Anthony Hopkins (The Silence Of The Lambs) and Nicole Kidman (The Hours) along with Gary Sinise (Forrest Gump) and Ed Harris (The Hours) star in the provocative mystery The Human Stain. Coleman Silk (Hopkins) has a secret. A terrible fifty-year-old secret that the esteemed college professor has kept hidden from everyone - including his wife, his children and his down-and-out young lover (Kidman) - and it's about to ruin his entire life. Storyline: The Human Stain is the story of Coleman Silk (Hopkins), a classics professor with a terrible secret that is about to shatter his life in a small New England town. When his affair with a young troubled janitor (Kidman) is uncovered, the secret Silk had harbored for over fifty years from his wife, his children and colleague, writer Nathan Zuckerman, fast explodes in a conflagration of devastating consequences. It is Zuckerman who stumbles upon Silk's secret and sets out to reconstruct the unknown biography of this eminent, upright man, esteemed as an educator for nearly all his life, and to understand how this ingeniously contrived life came unraveled. Written by lakeshoreentertainment.com Cast Notes: Anthony Hopkins (Coleman Silk), Nicole Kidman (Faunia Farley), Ed Harris (Lester Farley), Gary Sinise (Nathan Zuckerman), Wentworth Miller (Young Coleman Silk), Jacinda Barrett (Steena Paulsson), Harry J. Lennix (Mr. Silk [as Harry Lennix]), Clark Gregg (Nelson Primus), Anna Deavere Smith (Mrs. Silk), Lizan Mitchell (Ernestine), Kerry Washington (Ellie), Phyllis Newman (Iris Silk), Margo Martindale (Psychologist), Ron Canada (Herb Kebble), Mili Avital (Young Iris). User Comment: *****SPOILER ALERT***** (rosscinema@juno.com) Oceanside,Ca. • This story is taken from Philip Roth's novel and depending on who you talk to this film is either a good adaptation or a complete failure. I can honestly say that I have not read the book and I don't consider this a failure. But.... Story is about a college professor who gets in trouble with the faculty after making a remark about "Spooks" and instead of fighting the accusations he quits. Anthony Hopkins is Coleman Silk and the irony of the whole situation is that he is an African-American. He has been passing himself off as Jewish since he enlisted in the navy at a young age and has turned his back on both his race and his family. Coleman has elected to live his life without the troubles of racism and married a white woman named Iris. She never knew his secret and dies of a heart attack the day Coleman quits his position at the college. Time passes and Coleman approaches a novelist named Nathan Zuckerman (Gary Sinise) about writing a book about his ordeal with the college but Nathan rejects the idea. They remain friends and one day Coleman mentions that he is dating a much younger woman. It turns out that he is seeing Faunia Farely (Nicole Kidman) who works and lives on a milk farm and also is a janitor at the college. Faunia is cold and distant but she does mention that her ex-husband Lester (Ed Harris) is stalking her and is crazy. Coleman and Faunia sleep together but she insists that they're relationship be more casual and that he had better not fall in love with her. He does fall in love even though she has temperamental mood swings and an ex-husband who could possibly be dangerous. This film is directed by Robert Benton who has always been a good director and he manages to get some very effective performances from his actors. Harris is quite good as the ex-husband and Vietnam vet who has a tragic past with Faunia. But this film is asking its viewers to believe in the casting of the two leads and this is a very subjective part of the film. Can you believe Anthony Hopkins is a light skinned African-American? Can you believe Nicole Kidman as a janitor? These are two of our finest actors and both are very good in their roles. At least they both have good moments. Kidman has a very strong scene where she pulls out the ashes of her two deceased children and weeps. Hopkins was more effective when he was reacting to Kidman and the best scene for him was when she spends the night and the next morning starts to rant about this being a big mistake. Hopkins reaction was to slump his shoulders and to ponder if he wants to further they're relationship (I assume). I personally could not believe the roles that were presented and the actor that plays Hopkins as a younger man looks nothing like him at all. One other major flaw for me was the use of Sinise as a narrator. Very rarely does a film need a narrator and this one definitely did not. Sinise is an excellent actor but his voice is a little on the monotone side. In one early scene we see Coleman's wife Iris die in his arms and then Sinise chimes in with "..And Iris died in his arms". We just watched it, we don't need a narrator to tell us she just died. I've always thought if the makers of a film think its necessary for a narrator than I assume that they don't think they're telling the story effectively enough for the viewer to understand whats going on. This film does ask a lot from viewers and I think if you can accept the casting than you might find this to be an interesting piece of filmmaking. But I'm one of those who just can't accept the casting even though the actors do their best. Film looks good and is well acted but in the end I just didn't buy into it. Summary: Achilles on Viagra IMDb Rating (03/14/15): 6.3/10 from 23,634 users IMDb Rating (07/27/04): 6.4/10 from 1,978 users
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