Adrian Lyne directs Jeremy Irons, Dominique Swain and Melanie Griffith in this remake of the Kubrick and Nabokov classic where a professor falls for his landlady’s underage daughter.

An unnecessary movie. I can understand seeing the 1962 version, the compromises and the focus on comedy, and saying there’s a purer version of the source novel to be had. Who wants to really see a sexually explicit Lolita? This isn’t exactly that. A Lolita that humanises Humbert more? That isn’t really achieved. A better acted Lolita then? Well… yes… Irons and Swain are far more convincing, sophisticated pair of leads but there’s a dullness to even their brief chemistry. James Mason bless him held a whole enterprise together. At its best, this feels like a prestige TV mini-series commissioned as a perennial book hasn’t been adapted in the last decade rather than anyone had an exciting new spin. Kubrick’s version isn’t perfect but it has more barbed life and playful wit than this glossy pudding.

4

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