Lolita (1962) review

 
(9 out of 10)

TABOO-The second favorite subject of Stanley Kubrick as foretold by the DVD booklet.

PLOT:Humbert Humbert (James Mason) is a professor wating to teach in the United States. He rents out a room at the house of miss Charlotte Haze (Shelley Winters) and her daughter Lolita Haze (Sue Lyon), and instantly falls in love with Lolita.
Though his love is with Lolita, Charlotte seems to fall in love with Humbert and they get married, unhappily. When Charlotte finds Humbert's diary revealing his true emotions toward her and her daugther, she spirals into depression and throws herself in front of a car. Humbert goes to get Lolita at a summer camp her mother forced her into and starts to go on a long trip with her, not telling her that her mother did. All this time, a strange persona is following them and showing up near them (Peter Sellers). Lolita is devastated when she finds out her mother is dead, but after the shock realizes Humbert's love for her and agrees to a small affair with him, but when they try to start life over, Lolita starts falling for boys her age and Humbert grows upset. What will happen of this and who is their strange follower? This is a very unque plot for its time and is executed quite perfectly.

ACTING:The acting is very good. Mason is great as well as Lyon, considering this was her first role. I felt the chemistry between them. Winters was pretty good. Sellers was very good in all of his roles, but his main role in here as Clare Quilty is brilliant.


SCORE:This score was actually pretty unique and pretty good to boot.

OTHER CONTENT:This, sadly didn't have Kubrick's angled camerawork I love so much, but that's not why I counted it off a bit. My counting off is due to a little character development problem. I felt we didn't have enough character development in Humbert to be on his side or against him. I felt we got to know him, yes, but not truly enough to feel for him. This may definitely be disagreeable, but it's all a matter of opinion. I did like the script in this one, but not as much as Spartacus'.

OVERALL,an awesome Kubrick film with a perfectly executed plot, very good acting, unique score, and a great script, but it has some character development problems in my opinion.