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The Human Stain has all the elements that often add up to Oscar gold: big-name actors; a celebrated novel as source material; a serious director; and subject matter that gets at the nature of human relationships. It seems so calculated that many critics have written it off for trying too hard.
Its biggest hurdle is the casting. Much has been made of the inappropriateness of Anthony Hopkins in the lead role of college classics professor Coleman Silk. There's a secret revealed about Coleman about halfway through the film, and if you'd rather not know, skip the next paragraph now.
Coleman is a light-skinned black man who's spent most of his life passing for white. While it may be hard to imagine Hopkins as black, the point of Coleman's story is that everyone believes he is white. In that sense, Hopkins is fine for the role, though it's hard to buy the British thespian as a New Jersey native.
When Coleman loses his job uttering a perceived racial slur in class, and loses his wife to an aneurysm only days later, he's determined not to waste quietly away. He befriends reclusive local writer Nathan Zuckerman (Gary Sinise, who also narrates) and starts an affair with Faunia (Nicole Kidman) a rough-and-tumble cleaning woman half his age. Kidman, too, seems miscast, but she's able to lose herself in her role better than Hopkins can in his.
Screenwriter Nicholas Meyer and director Robert Benton have simplified Philip Roth's novel, and their juxtaposition of young Coleman's struggle with his identity alongside aging Coleman's struggles with Faunia doesn't always connect. There is a statement here, though, about finding your place in the world and learning to accept the people that you love, that does come through. While the film does overreach at times, and might not be as powerful as the material deserves, The Human Stain is far from a failure.