Lolita (DVD, 1999, Special Edition)

this is pasted from an excerpt of a crude outline of my thesis. may i just take this moment to urge anyone seeing this movie to read Vladimir Nabokov's novel which it is based on beforehand.
Adrian Lyne’s Lolita is fairly loyal to the plot structure of Nabokov’s novel, but fails to capture the tone. Lyne makes his film overly sentimental with background violin music and a nihilistic tone of despair and hopelessness that leaves little room for Nabokov’s acerbic humorous treatment of the story. Lyne does have Lolita as a 12 year old child, but played by a 17 year old actress so as not to display too small a girl. Lyne includes visual culture, mostly of pictures in Lolita’s perusal of film star magazines and her typical desires to be either a dancer or an actress. Lyne also catches the sick side of voyeurism in scenes when the whole neighborhood stands around to gaze at Charlotte’s dead body, and when Humbert tries to watch Lolita change into a bathing suit top in the car after leaving the camp. Lyne adheres to Nabokov’s treatment of traveling Americana culture in showing various hotels and scenic roads throughout the Midwest, including hotel rooms modeled after teepees. Lolita in the backseat of the car throws various random toys around, illustrating the amassed quantity of kitsch to quell her sorrow at lost childhood and the death of her mother with shallow material objects. Lolita in this film proves much more manipulative than Kubrick’s Lo, bribing sexual favors from Humbert for money such as the scene in which she asks for a raise in allowance. However, Lyne takes the sex scenes a bit too far, even adding in a rather disturbing rape scene right before Lolita runs off with Quilty. Overall, neither film captures the full essence of Nabokov’s Lolita. Kubrick’s gets the humorous tone but leaves out the commentary and Lyne’s gets the plot right and includes most of the commentary on voyeurism, but warps the humorous tone out of the story, creating a much more nihilistic depiction of utter despair. Neither film is able to turn in on itself to recreate the experience and critique of visual culture that the novel relies on.

Great performance on a worn out subject and presented with a bit of an irony - our passions lead to our destruction. The 'execution' scene at the end is quite a funny masterpiece.

What an amazing film. You truly fall in love along side Humbert w/ Lolita. It's charming and dark. Moving and shocking all at once. I can't say enough good things about this film. Personally I give it a 10.

This is a great movie. It's funny, erotic and very much a great time.

I would definetely buy from this seller again!!!!

I really loved this movie and it was so good... I just couldn't stop watching it. I liked this movie because Dominique Swain did a great job with her role in this movie. I'd reccomend this movie to anyone who likes to watch a good drama filled with some comical moments. I chose to buy this movie, as it is hard to find around these parts. I give this movie, 2 thumbs up!! :o) A must-see movie!!