Lolita (1967)

For someone who has not read Nabakov's book, the movie Lolita is a clean slate and it does not matter whether the movie is honest to the book or not.

The movie has the cast playing most of the roles to perfection. Sue Lyons as Lolita is exceptional as the fourteen year old who not entirely a child and not entirely an adult. James Mason's Humbert is suitably out of place is all sorts of situations. The scheming, multi-faceted Clare Quilty is played by Peter Sellers in a manner only Peter Sellers can.

Above all the film is about the way individuals react to or manipulate situations. Humbert is stricken by the Lolita's beauty and rendered utterly helpless. Lolita in her own way is stricken by the impending adulthood. She wants to follow her passions and be with boys. On the one hand she is manipulating Humbert to satisfy her material needs and her ego on the other hand she is chasing Quilty out of passion. Humbert is out of place in America, since he is a foreigner. He is out of place on the dance floor. He is out of place in bed with Charlotte since he does not love her. He is out of place with Lolita since he should not love her. He is out of place in Beardsley since he is afraid of gossip and he is out of place on the road since he is being chased.

Although the name Lolita evokes a sense that the movie is about paedophilia, in reality Kubrick has made a movie that lays out an entire spectrum of reactions the human mind is capable of in its varying states of purity and corruption.