E-Mail This Article to a Friend THE HUMAN STAIN

One possible way to have salvaged Robert Benton’s inept adaptation of Philip Roth’s brilliant novel might have been to reverse the casting and have Anthony Hopkins play Faunia, the beautiful young janitor, and Nicole Kidman play Coleman Silk, the crusty old professor who falls for her. It wouldn’t seem any less plausible than the way things stand (there’s a secret in Coleman’s past that makes Hopkins’s casting even more preposterous). That aside, Benton has little success in re-creating Roth’s delicate interweaving of past and present and of disparate points of view, and not much affinity for his themes of ostracism and acceptance, independence and compromise, rage and desire.

Not many filmmakers would do better, however, and Benton does have a moment of self-reflexive inspiration when he shoots Coleman dancing "cheek to cheek" through the windows of a porch so as to suggest the frames of a film strip. As a simple narrative, though, this is more stained than human, and credible only when Ed Harris is on the screen as Lester, Faunia’s abusive Vietnam-vet ex-husband, or Gary Sinise is portraying Nathan Zuckerman, Roth’s recurring fictional persona and the tale’s ostensible narrator. The pair’s creepy meeting by an ice-fishing hole almost makes up for Hopkins’s twitchiness and Kidman’s posturing — hers is the most narcissistic performance of the year.