Lolita

R

1997

2 hr. 17 min.

Drama

List

69%

26 Reviews

Tomatometer

75%

10,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

Urbane professor Humbert Humbert (Jeremy Irons) marries a New England widow (Melanie Griffith) to be near her nymphet daughter.

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Critics Consensus

If it can't quite live up to Nabokov's words, Adrian Lyne's Lolita manages to find new emotional notes in this complicated story, thanks in large part to its solid performances.

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Jason

Such an amazing performance by both leads. It always baffles me why Swain didn't excel after this film.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

11/22/23

Full Review

Leaburn O

Having just finished the book, the film became required viewing. It's impossible to match the book on film but the editor did a good job and told the story relatively faithfully. It has a very different feel to the book but it's an interesting interpretation. Bought on DVD some time ago but I was awaiting completion of the book before I watched.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

09/23/23

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Bodhi R

Not the masterpiece that is the novel, but a compelling film that makes you want to watch to the end. They have reduced the creepiness and brilliance of Humbert, and they have increased the maturity and attractiveness of little Lo, and thereby they have made the film more palatable for the average moviegoer. But this does tweak what is a masterpiece and therefore borders on sacrilege. You can draw your own conclusions. I thoroughly enjoyed the sets and the costumes (it really feels like the era), but I didn't enjoy the chaotic ending or the casting of Irons as Humbert; had the actor playing Quilty been cast in the role, I dare say the quality of the film may have increased tenfold.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

09/18/23

Full Review

gianni d

It's impossible to get satisfied by a movie rendering of Nabokov's masterpiece Lolita if you expect a "faithful" transcription from a universe (the novel) to another one (a movie). It has no sense. In a way, it's like to pretend to transform faithfully a diamond in a cloud or viceversa. Has it some sense? No. Given this premise you can expect that a movie reflects with intelligence and sensibility the story of Lolita the novel. Adrian Lyne's one does not. He totally betrays the features of the heroine making a twelve years old brazen girl into a young harlot letting herself mate with a disfigured Humbert Humbert (totally lacking of his kind of very special cunny intelligence an evil mirth) who in Lyne's film looks like more to a conventional academic dummy messed up in a sex affaire (more than a tragic, and morbid, love story whith a little girl) with an ordinary and too far experienced teenager , whose explicit sex performances are insult to Nabokov's acrobatic language genius in his periphrastic, tightrope style when dealing whith such a delicate ground. A flop, on my opinion. As to Dmitri Nabokov, son and valued translator of his father opus, very respectful of the aesthetical and moral instances of the whole art of Nabokov, save the motto "pecunia non olet", I can see no other reason for him to give the permission, and collaborate too, to realize such a will-o'-the-wisp, rather than pale fire, referring haphazardly to Lolita. Totally different is Kubrik's rendering of the same novel, wich Nabokov, apart any distinguo, considered "a fist rate movie". I suspect he would have been horrified by Lyne's work, had he have been a seer and have a private preview of the show.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

09/08/23

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Abigail M

odd movie and very dragged out and kinda confusing.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

08/01/23

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Jelisije J

A subject matter that has such such complex characters that leads to a very interesting story that you will never forget.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

06/13/23

Full Review

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Adrian Lyne

Director

Jeremy Irons

Humbert Humbert

Melanie Griffith

Charlotte Haze

Frank Langella

Clare Quilty

Dominique Swain

Dolores "Lolita" Haze

Suzanne Shepherd

Miss Pratt

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John Leonard

New York Magazine/Vulture

How does Lyne's Lolita compare with Stanley Kubrick's, back in 1962? It's superior in balance.

Feb 1, 2018

Full Review

Globe and Mail

Rated: 2/4

Apr 12, 2002

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James Berardinelli

ReelViews

Rated: 3/4

Jan 1, 2000

Full Review

Mike Davies

Birmingham Post

This is an intelligent, faithful reading, suffused with a heady sense of atmosphere of a post war America that's also losing its innocence. Disturbing certainly, but the worst thing you can say is that it's a bit dramatically dull.

Feb 2, 2023

Full Review

Michael Wood

The New York Review of Books

Dominique Swain as Lolita is appropriately sulky and gawky, and she has a sudden, delayed smile which lights up the whole film whenever it appears.

Aug 17, 2018

Full Review

Cole Smithey

ColeSmithey.com

[VIDEO ESSAY] Although it is considered sacrilege in some circles to say it, Adrian Lyne's 1997 film version of Vladimir Nabokov's often banned 1954 novel is a vast improvement over Stanley Kubrick's beloved 1962 version.

Rated: A+

Jul 5, 2015

Full Review

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Synopsis

Urbane professor Humbert Humbert (Jeremy Irons) marries a New England widow (Melanie Griffith) to be near her nymphet daughter.

Director: Adrian Lyne
Screenwriter: Stephen Schiff
Production Co: Guild, Pathe UK, Lolita Productions
Rating: R
Genre: Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Streaming): Jan 12, 2017
Box Office (Gross USA): $1.4M
Sound Mix: Surround

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