Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

As one of Stanley Kubrick’s first independently produced films in England, Lolita was a landmark piece for him—delving him into the topic of sexual obsession and thirst that he would later revisit in the last year of his life with his provocative and stunning Eyes Wide Shut. But the real question is: Is Lolita as timeless and domineering as other works in Kubrick’s voluptuous filmography?

Humbert Humbert (James Mason) is a divorced British literature professor who decides to take the career move to the United States to pursue a position at a great school. In doing so he is caught in love with Charlotte Haze (Shelley Winters), a widowed landlady of sorts with a healthy appetite for passionate intimacy. But as events would have it, he marries Haze to get closer to her nymphomaniac fourteen-year-old daughter Lolita (Sue Lyon) and thus sets off a chain of events—including a plot with a mischievous man known as Clare Quilty (Peter Sellers)—that’s only suitable in a Kubrickian film.

Big surprise here: Lolita is controversial. Of course a story about (hinted) pedophilism and love with a teenage girl is bound to get a lot of attention and as well it should. This was definitely one of the earliest films dealing with this gritty subject matter and simply the fact that it came out when it did states just how much an artist Stanley Kubrick who, as a filmmaker, broke down almost all barriers whether it was the restrictions of a horror film, a political satire, or a space odyssey.

But as big of a statement as it is, that’s all it seems to be—there’s really almost no substance behind anything. What the movie boils down to is an older man’s crush on a girl and the obsession that ensues. Kubrick’s directing is definitely great, which is to be expected. He made the whole ‘affair’ hint its way right in your face from the start and in a few of the key scenes like the movie theatre hand holding sequence as well as the looks that Mason gives just left me uncomfortable to say the least which is, I think, a point Kubrick was trying to get across to the audience.

The acting in the movie definitely hits its mark, but I found James Mason’s acting in the second half of the movie when everything’s going down to be difficult to watch because he totally loses it. I couldn’t see through the corniness of it when the lame soundtrack comes on (and no I’m not talking about the very cool tango song that is the signature of the movie) and he whimpers with his crying fits. The first half of the movie was greatly executed with a great emphasis on intrigue in the Lolita character and you sort of feel sympathy for him (despite how much of a dirt bag he is). His interplay with Sue Lyon is actually quite good and they had a good chemistry, but at the same time it was just awkward the whole time—not just because her character is 14, but just that she seemed very restricted in her performance. At the same time, her naïve aspects and seductress ways make her interesting to watch at some points.

Interestingly enough, Shelley Winters, holds her own against him and offers a very compelling performance that shows her in so many different transitions from being this independent smart women to freaking out like a diabetic and being lovely and suave—she has so many faces in this movie and yet she really brings her character, written in Vladimir Nabokov’s novel (whom this movie is an adaptation of), to life. Peter Sellers is a great supporting actor, but he almost steals the entire movie with his role of Clare Quilty—from his quirky look and dead-on vocal imitation of Stanley Kubrick and his dynamic performance in the opening few minutes of the movie. Two years later he would go on to work with Kubrick again in the political satire Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb.

Really one of the only things I can truly give a red flag on is just how unappealing this movie was to me; this is one of the few Kubrickian films that I’m not a huge fan of just on how slow moving it can be and dreary and a little dull the story is. The story seems just a tad bit cliché and even turns into one of those romantic movies with a revenge twist to it that just makes it hard to swallow at times. I think that the subject matter was interesting, but the actual effort put forth to implement the story just left much to be desired.

Don’t get me wrong, this movie is worth watching if you are a huge Stanley Kubrick fan like I am, but it just seemed bogged down by a lame consistency of cliché plot cues and a rather uninteresting movie. At the same time, I do watch it from time to time, but it doesn’t hold its own with the rest of Kubrick’s great films. I’d recommend a watch just to absorb the good things about the movie—like Sellers’ performance, Kubrick’s directing, and some of the key scenes that makes this movie a classic, but really there’s nothing really amazing found here in Lolita.

(c) Jason Haskins, 2007



Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older