Not having read Philip Roth’s novel “The Human Stain”, which this movie was based on, I was initially skeptical on the storyline, which has Anthony Hopkins playing Coleman Silk, an African American born with white skin. I was wondering where this story could go and if such a rare idea could carry a movie even though the book won a Pulitzer Prize.
The next thing I noticed was the cast, Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Gary Sinise, and Ed Harris, along with Academy Award winning Robert Benton (“Kramer vs. Kramer,” “Nobody’s Fool,” “Places in the Heart”) at the directorial helm and I started to look even deeper because these people would not be involved with a production that would be a waste of time, and a waste of time it was not.
Coleman Silk is a distinguished professor at a prestigious New England college and his world is flipped upside down one day when he asks about the whereabouts of two students that have not been to his class a single day and he asks the class, “Do these people exist, or are they spooks?”
Unbeknownst to Silk the absent students where African American and complaints where filed for his use of the word “spooks.” Silk sits down with the administration and despite the chance to reveal his ancestry he remains silent and retires from his profession in shame and anger.
Now retired Silk looks to revive his life after his wife’s untimely death with the two relationships he builds with writer Nathan Zuckerman (Sinise) who he intrigues with his story and a scandalous affair with 35 year-old Faunia Farley (Kidman).
Throughout the film we are transported back in time to Silk’s childhood where he initially begins to deny his heritage and how he grew farther and farther from his African-American family.
The Human Stain is emotionally charged in each and every scene as you can see Silk battling his conscience and his instincts. Anthony Hopkins carries this burden to the fullest extent and the storyline that I initially had doubts about manages to move me all the way up to the final minutes of the production.
Along with Hopkins’s performance is Nicole Kidman transforming herself as she did in The Hours into a character that has beaten and battered her whole life. To study for the role Kidman visited several battered wives centers to see the torment they have gone through and to be able to portray the Farley character in true form. She is so successful that you can see the scared woman in her eyes and how the past has pushed this woman into the life she now leads.
The fact that the affair between Silk and Farley is scandalous is lost once more and more of the story is revealed and the pain they feel is passed on to the audience only to be resolved in the end when you can see exactly the peace the two characters found in each other.
Robert Benton directs this cast perfectly and spins the Pulitzer Prize winning novel into a perfect portrayal of lives lost and love found as Hopkins delivers a quote that resonates throughout the entire movie in reference to his relationship with Farley, “This is not my first love, it’s not my great love, but it’s my last love.”
Benton says of Hopkins portrayal of Silk, “He goes beyond good acting into something that is more like life itself, and I felt he alone had the ability to inhabit Coleman’s contradictions, to bring both compassion and ferocity to the role, and to take both physical and emotional risks.”
This quote couldn’t be more accurate of Hopkins’s performance as well as Kidman’s and it is exciting to see such intricate characters brought to life.
The Human Stain is a classic movie for all time and a must see as you well be saddened by Silk’s situation and inspired by the lives he touches.
