Review of Lolita (1962) by Harpreet S — 23 Jun 2013

Stanley Kubrick's "Lolita" only scratches the surface compared to what Vladimir Nabokov did in his novel of the same name, which I finished reading yesterday morning. Just to clarify, I am still looking at the two mediums separately; my opinion of the film is largely because of what I viewed not simply because the novel is so great (and difficult).

As we all know it's about a middle-aged man obsessed with a teenage girl, briefly speaking. Kubricks' film lacks intimacy between its characters and doesn't provide great performances; only in maybe one scene did I really feel the pain of Humbert (James Mason).

The acting was strictly average, neither terribly bad nor incredibly good. As an example, when Humbert is pondering to murder one of the characters with a gun, he isn't entirely convincing; Sue Lyon as Lolita was gorgeous, that's about it.

Peter Sellers was an elite actor but surprisingly I wasn't too fond of him as Clare Quilty. The narrative doesn't form a continuous flow; it just seems specific excerpts were chosen and put in for the sake of it.

It's a film where its base is missing and we are only given the remains. Stanley Kubrick would have been better off making it at a later stage in his career when he had complete artistic control and vision; it's obvious he was very limited in what he could show considering the subject material.

I would have liked to see him directing it in color and during the 70s, when he made films like "Barry Lyndon" and "A Clockwork Orange." Off the top of my head, filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock and Luchino Visconti come to mind that could have done justice to the novel.

Nevertheless Kubrick's adaption was still interesting to watch, it was the first time where I actually read the novel and then watched a film adaption of it.