Somehow, even though I am an ardent fan of Kubrick, I didn't see this film from 1962 until just recently. It certainly was worth a look, though it definitely ranks among Kubrick's lesser films and explores themes he readdressed in his last film, "Eyes Wide Shut" over thirty-five years later. There are some classic Kubrick scenes in this flick, like the pan down from the bedroom into the kitchen after Humbert and Mrs. Hays get into a fight, or when Humbert is visited by "friends" while soaking in a bathtub after his wife's tragic accident, and of course the iconic scene of Lolita lying on her stomach on the bed in the hotel playfully cocking her head back and forth at Humbert and then slipping off her shoes.
How much you can tolerate Shelly Winters' whining and James Mason's overt perversions will make or break this film for you. You also have an even more perverted Peter Sellers doing his typical man of a thousand disguises bit that just never seemed right to me in this film. The actress playing the title character made little Lolita come across as a sniveling brat with nary the seductive properties so overwhelming in the novel. Due to the social mores of the day, Kubrick really wasn't able to channel the aching lyrical poetry of Nabokov's controversial tale of older men lusting after a nymphet. Here, Kubrick, always the sly master, guises the sexual deviances in two polarizing ways: at times he plays the film like a comedy of manners (especially in the Sellers' scenes which become all the more disturbing because of what he is trying to get at from all the comedic shenanigans), and at other times the film is a formulaic and staged melodrama. The shifting tones are interesting, but don't really work, and then the film literally ends mid-scene with Mason's Humbert finally tracking down Seller's Quilty and all the viewer is left with is an anti-climactic epilogue. All in all, an interesting film to view in the context of the time it was made and against Kubrick's other works as a thematic whole, but definitely not the classic you thought it could be and a missed opportunity to fully tap into Nabokov's art.
How much you can tolerate Shelly Winters' whining and James Mason's overt perversions will make or break this film for you. You also have an even more perverted Peter Sellers doing his typical man of a thousand disguises bit that just never seemed right to me in this film. The actress playing the title character made little Lolita come across as a sniveling brat with nary the seductive properties so overwhelming in the novel. Due to the social mores of the day, Kubrick really wasn't able to channel the aching lyrical poetry of Nabokov's controversial tale of older men lusting after a nymphet. Here, Kubrick, always the sly master, guises the sexual deviances in two polarizing ways: at times he plays the film like a comedy of manners (especially in the Sellers' scenes which become all the more disturbing because of what he is trying to get at from all the comedic shenanigans), and at other times the film is a formulaic and staged melodrama. The shifting tones are interesting, but don't really work, and then the film literally ends mid-scene with Mason's Humbert finally tracking down Seller's Quilty and all the viewer is left with is an anti-climactic epilogue. All in all, an interesting film to view in the context of the time it was made and against Kubrick's other works as a thematic whole, but definitely not the classic you thought it could be and a missed opportunity to fully tap into Nabokov's art.