Lolita

A fascinating if problematic early film from Stanley Kubrick, perhaps the most obsessive of the great auteurs of the 1960s, made just on the cusp of a run of cinematic masterpieces. Read full review

Nabokov’s satire is sensationally cast, with Winters and Sellers delivering some of their best work ever. Read full review

Brilliant adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's 20th Century comic-erotic classic. [08 Jul 2005, p.C2]

Wild, marvelously enjoyable comedy, adapted from Nabokov's novel.

Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of the Vladimir Nabokov classic isn't as racy as the new one by Adrian Lyne, which opens in theaters tomorrow. But it's a lot funnier, thanks in no small part to the casting of Peter Sellers as a mystery man of many accents and Shelley Winters as Lolita's silly mother. [01 Oct 1998]

This is not the novel Lolita, but it is a provocative sort of film. Read full review

Lolita may be a flawed adaptation, but it's still a great movie. While the film fails to capture the compulsive, microscopically detailed obsession of Nabokov's antihero, Humbert Humbert, it does explore (sometimes shockingly, even now) a kind of sexual destruction in frank (and often hilarious) ways. [30 Jan 1992, p.11]

Although it is often seen as a precursor to the multiple parts played in Dr Strangelove, Sellers' turn here is a reminder of his true potential, soon to be swallowed up by a stream of ever more awful Pink Panther films. Read full review

Where Nabokov was witty, Kubrick is sometimes merely snide, but fine performances (particularly from Peter Sellers, as the ominous Clare Quilty) cover most of the rough spots. Read full review

Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov’s wicked, witty hymn to forbidden love loses some bite in the journey from novel to the screen, but it’s got its plummy pleasures, including a wonderfully subtle James Mason as Humbert Humbert, obsessed with the delicious Sue Lyon as the 14-year-old Lolita (bumped up from 12 in the book), and a marvelously blowzy Shelley Winters, hilarious as Lolita’s sexually voracious mom. Read full review

Kubrick manages to handle the moral and psychological nuances with surprising lucidity, but the decision to indulge Peter Sellers' gift for mimickry in the role of Quilty tends to scupper the movie's tone. Fascinating, nevertheless. Read full review

Where the book peers directly into despair and tragedy, the film looks away and dials up the comedy. Read full review

Vladimir Nabokov's witty, grotesque novel is, in its film version, like a bee from which the stinger has been removed. It still buzzes with a sort of promising irreverence, but it lacks the power to shock and, eventually, makes very little point either as comedy or satire. Read full review

Kubrick goes through the motions with a hula hoop and the munching of potato chips, but there is nothing intuitive or abandoned about the man-nymphet relationship. The Director's heart is apparently elsewhere. [05 Jul 1962, p.11]