Movie: The Human Stain

Have been longing to see this one out of a good recommendation from a fellow movie fan. Wentworth Miller was the main reason, of course, for me, to look it up, anyway. So, I went to the local DVD rental shop and found the DVD I wanted on the Prison Break's rack. Looking for it was a bit difficult since the rack was organized based on Japanese title.

The Human Stain was translated into 白いカラス (Shiroi Karasu = White Crow). Cannot be really sure, but I guess the title came out out of Nicole Kidman's character fondness of a crow she called Prince. And as for the color mentioning: this movie did talked about racial issues.

Anyway, going into the story. Anthony Hopkins played as Coleman Silk, a light-skinned African-American, that has been hiding his racial identity almost most of his life. But one small ironic accident happened and destroyed all that he has built by sacrificing his family and identity: he lost his job after using a word that has bad implication to the colored people. The story then flash-back and forward a bit to his past life and his present life after meeting a beautiful drifter played by Nicole Kidman.

My biggest protest was of course: there's not enough Wentworth Miller on the screen ;-p, a definitely bias opinion. But aside from the Wentworth's fandom, I think I was more interested in how Coleman achieved his position as a well known college professor, rather than his life after he lost his job.

But watching the trailer, I guess that was a long shot hope, cause they were definitely focusing on his relationship with Nicole Kidman's character, which couldn't be explore if the movie was heavier on the past life of Coleman Silk. I cannot help thinking though, that maybe the book offered much interesting and deep story of this character. Hmmm, another bad interpretation of a written work? Since I never actually read the book by Philip Roth, cannot say anymore.

Oh, and the scenes with Nicole's ex-husband were more of a blur for me. Didn't really grasped the significance of them all.



As for the acting, well... couldn't really get it inside my head that Anthony Hopkins was indeed an African-American, while Wentworth, being a half African descended himself, really looked the part. And even though, I have came to like Nicole's acting, in this movie her character was a bit felt pretentious for me.




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Director: Robert Benton Casts: Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Wentworth Miller Producer: Miramax Films Release Date: Oct 2003 (theather), July 2004 (video)