Lolita (1962)

 Stanley Kubrick's "Lolita"

It has been almost a decade since I've seen Stanley Kubrick's 1962 adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's 1955 novel "Lolita." I remember the film not resonating with me, and felt that it was one of Kubrick's weaker pieces. The second time around, I thought that there was perhaps something I had missed. After giving it another chance, I have reached the same conclusions about the film as I did the first go-around.

The film centers on a man's chase after a 14-year-old girl named Lolita. The outright pedophilia of the novel is tampered down for the film version. However, the outrighedness is simply swapped for unspoken obviousness. The disturbing pining and suppression of this young girl is the story itself. Yet, I don't feel as though it truly means anything. 

The film comes across as a black comedy, with the pedophilia meant to act as a driver for the propulsion of the protagonist's purpose. But, the lack of thematic meaning or subjective observation renders this notion hollow. I suppose one could walk away from the film feeling as though the film provided some semblance of comedy and that the events merely aided in this. However, the comedy felt lacking to me. And, without it, the solidity of any sort of purpose of the story felt more offhandedly perverse than anything else.

That being said, I don't mind perverse films. However, perverse films only work if the attempt is to make it perverse and that being the point. I truly don't think perversion was the point of "Lolita" at all. Producer James Harris is even on record saying that they "wanted it to come off as a love story and to feel very sympathetic with Humbert [the protagonist]." Because sympathy, not perversion, was the intention, I feel as though they failed miserably. To me, Humbert renders no sympathy and acts as a antagonist in his own story. The approach of Humbert coming across as a faulted Scorsese-esque character would have made the approach more acceptable. However, because of the intentions of the filmmakers, "Lolita" feels more disturbing as a piece in itself rather than being thematically disturbing.