Lolita (1962)
For a supposedly controversial film, this was rather tame. I guess the censors are to be thanked for that. Of course being vague about what is actually going on between Humbert and Lolita lets the viewer fill in the blanks, but I also think some depth was lost in the process.
No doubt that James Mason steals the movie with his performance. He is great at showing a man that tries to keep up appearances to the outside world, while he struggles with his true desires. Shelley Winters is just delightfully annoying and Peter Sellars is the perfect mysterious manic stranger that disrupts the story from time to time. Sadly the weakest character is Lolita, while being perfectly fine played by Sue Lyon, we never really get to understand what she actually thinks and desires.
Before watching this I only knew vaguely what the whole concept of “Lolita” was and maybe I expected something a bit different. It isn’t really a love story. It is about obsession, jealousy and a very unhealthy need for control. Not much unlike other stories about unhealthy relationships, though of course the whole family dynamic makes it problematic in a whole different way. But that aspect with the problematic age and Humbert being her stepfather didn’t really come much to surface.
Just the past month, there have been two political scandals here with politicians being exposed for having a relationship with 15 year olds. The dangerous topic of how to deal with sexual attraction towards young people between childhood and adulthood has potential to be explored in a challenging manner for the viewer in a film both now and then, but I find this film to simply not be daring enough. It seems like Kubrick wanted something else but was held back by censors. Perhaps the book is worth reading instead.
Rating: 3.5