‘Lolita’ Doesn’T Ask For Acceptance, Only Understanding

The controversy over Adrian Lyne’s faithful adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov’s 1958 novel “Lolita” has far outshadowed any look at the film itself.

Which is only natural. When a director redoes a film (Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 version) that adapts a novel about a middle-age man’s obsession with a 12-year-old girl, controversy is bound to erupt.

But let’s look past the controversy. Let’s forget, if we can, the sickening basis for the book - an emotionally stunted man’s passion for a “nymphet” named, alternately, Dolores, Lo, Lolly and, finally, Lolita.

Let’s simply ask one question: Does the film hold up as art?

The answer has to be yes.

As a filmmaker, Lyne is known to us for a number of sexual potboilers, most notably “9-1/2 Weeks,” “Fatal Attraction” and “Flashdance.”

In “Lolita,” however, he is attempting to raise the bar of personal achievement. His film (written by Stephen Schiff) is sometimes somber, sometimes silly meditation based on a book that is as lushly written as it is philosophically troubling. The saving grace is that Nabokov, Kubrick and now Lyne all know perfectly well how reprehensible the story’s self-revealing protagonist - the alliteratively named Humbert Humbert - truly is.

“Lolita” doesn’t ask us to agree with Humbert; it merely asks us to understand him. It doesn’t ask us to sympathize with him; it merely asks us to consider the kind of hell that he ends up creating for himself (and, by extension, the young girl he obsesses on).

For those of you who don’t know the familiar plot, here it is in brief: Humbert (Jeremy Irons) is a teacher of French who, while waiting to take a job in New England, rents a room in a house run by a blowzy woman named Charlotte Haze (Melanie Griffith).

Humbert is repulsed by Charlotte, but he is immediately drawn to her daughter Dolores. In Nabokov’s prose, Humbert rhapsodizes, “Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta.”

As things turn out, Humbert conspires to stay with Charlotte so that he can remain close to Lolita. Fate intervenes to help forge an even more intimate relationship.

But then Nabokov’s story deepens. It becomes a literary examination of the aphorism about being careful what you wish for. Humbert gets what he wants, and it earns him a trip to emotional hell.

In documenting Humbert’s descent, Lyne, who’s always had a talent for visuals, has created a beautiful portrait of the late 1940s. In terms of fashion, speech and in everyday references (service stations actually provide service!), the film looks and feels authentic. And Lyne’s use of natural lighting, behind the cinematography of Howard Atherton, is superb.

Lyne even uses Ennio Morricone, the noted Italian composer, who contributes a musical score that emphasizes the film’s overall haunting mood.

As for the acting, it’s hard to imagine anyone but Irons playing the fastidious fussbudget Humbert. As he has in films such as “Damage” and “The French Lieutenant’s Woman,” Irons exhibits the right mix of repression and intensity to portray someone who is sexually muddled.

Swain is less effective, if only because she - even at 15, the age she was when the film was shot - is more of a little girl than a budding sexual presence. Yet she is able to imbue the character with a kind of knowing/ unknowing cleverness: Her Lolita understands that she has power over Humbert, but she can’t begin to fully comprehend the consequences of her actions.

And this clash of knowledge and naivete would seem to be one sure way of understanding “Lolita,” whether we’re talking about the intent of Nabokov, Kubrick or Lyne. It is not a story of sex but of sexual obsession; it is not a look at love but of possession and power.

Accept or deny if you must the notion that such obsessions deserve to be understood instead of merely condemned. But never fool yourself that they don’t exist.

And as they do, it’s the artist’s prerogative - make that obligation - to go there and look.

That Lyne has done so in such an artful manner is merely a plus.

“Lolita” *** 1/2 Locations: Magic Lantern Cinemas & Pub Credits: Directed by Adrian Lyne, starring Jeremy Irons, Dominique Swain, Melanie Griffith, Frank Langella Running time: 2:17 Rating: R