Rating: R
Genre:
Drama
Theatrical Release: 10/31/2003(USA
Release Date: 07/20/2004
Dubbed: English/French
Sound: DD5.1
Run Time: 106 Minutes
Flags: Adult Situations, Profanity, Sexual Situations
Distributor/Studio: Miramax
For his first film since 1998's
Twilight, acclaimed director
Robert Benton helmed this tense
drama written by
Fatal Attraction co-scribe
Nicholas Meyer and based on the novel of the same name by
Philip Roth. Set in the late '90s at the height of the
Clinton sex-scandal,
The Human Stain stars
Anthony Hopkins as
Coleman Silk, a respected professor at a New England college who suddenly finds his life unraveling after a comment he makes about some African-American students is misinterpreted as a racial slur. As the scandal heats up,
Nathan Zuckerman (
Gary Sinise), a writer researching a biography of
Silk, begins to dig deeper and deeper into
Silk's life. Eventually, matters are made worse when an affair with a young married janitor named
Faunia Farley (
Nicole Kidman) is exposed. But amid the controversy,
Silk must struggle to keep his greatest secret, a secret he's held for the majority of his life, from becoming public.
Ed Harris, who previously worked with
Benton in 1984's
Places in the Heart, also stars.
~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide