The tag line, "How did they ever make a movie of Lolita?" seems appropriatebecause, in short, the answer is that they didn't. Kubrick, for all histouted genius, didn't come close to capturing the book on film. It hardlyseems to have much to do with Nabokov at all, instead being off the subjectand its own unique creature. Although some films can (and should) be viewedas divorced from their source material, I find it difficult toregard this production without comparing it to Nabokov's creation. I wonderwhy Kubrick interpreted it this way. Putting aside the possible controversya faithful adaptation may have caused, Kubrick chose to emphasize thesatirical elements and update it to 1960s culture. Of course, Lolita isaged afew years to make the relationship less shocking. As played by Sue Lyon (wholooks much older), she comes off as a typical '60s teeny-bopper heroine.Kubrick seems to want to parody other movies of this period and theactivities of that society and set. The music here is atrocious, especiallythe annoying love theme, which resembles swinging go-go music of theera.
The story wanders all over the place, hardly devoting enough time to centralrelationship between Humbert Humbert and Lolita. The plot is slight andunfocused, preferring to diverge off into subplots that distract from themain story and themes. When the occasional scene does follow the book (manyoccur in a strange, seemingly random-chosen fashion), it appears almostjarringly out of place with the rest of the action. By incorporating toomany elements of diffuse black humor, the comic and poignant obsessionangle is considerably diluted. The film is also hampered by poorperformances by all the major players save Peter Sellers. James Mason isespecially weak as Humbert, Shelley Winters is unequivocally annoying, andSue Lyon is acompletely uninteresting disappointment. Sellers' character of Quilty isallowed to dominate the movie so much, I questioned whether this wassupposed to be his story. The Quilty character, which was essentially aminor through pervasive presence in the novel, is brought to the forefronthere, and Sellers improvises wildly to create a particularly overshadowingcreep. As a movie on its own, perhaps the Kubrick version works on somelevel, but it fails as an adaptation of Nabokov's novel.
