Lolita(1998)

Plot Summary

• Set in the 1950's USA - 'Lolita' is the prison memoir of a European Professor, Humbert Humbert (Jeremy Irons). Haunted by the death of his first love Annabel when he was just a youth. Humbert met Annabel (Emma Griffiths-Malin) in Cannes, France in 1921 where he worked at a hotel. Humbert was 14 years old and so was Annabel. They both fell madly in love. They had sex, but 4 months later Annabel died of Typhus. He has been unable to overcome his infatuation with young girls (what he calls 'Nymphets'). Humbert kept looking for Annabel even after he outgrew his childhood.Now middle-aged, Humbert moves to America and takes up residence in the New England town of Ramsdale, with a friend of a friend, Charlotte Haze (Melanie Griffith) for the summer to work on his book. Charlotte is herself a widow. Upon his arrival to her home, he soon discovers that she has a 13-year-old daughter named Dolores (Dominique Swain). He becomes infatuated with her immediately. Dolores is an innocent girl, but her innocent gestures and lack of boundaries with Humbert only excite him even more. Humbert had found his Annabel again. Dolores also reciprocates his feelings in isolation. Dolores is flirtatious and provocative in her actions. Dolores tells Humbert that Charlotte has a thing for him. She gets bolder and more adventurous and openly starts flirting with Humbert.Not too soon after his arrival Charlotte sends Dolores to a summer camp. Before leaving Dolores kisses Humbert flush on the lips and leaves him stunned. While Dolores is at camp Charlotte confesses her love for Humbert, although he has no interest in her he decides to marry her as he sees it as a way of getting closer to Lolita (this is a pet-name that he gave Dolores). Humbert avoids having sex with Charlotte by giving her sleeping pills. Charlotte then discovers a journal that Humbert has kept detailing his true feelings for her and Lolita; in an emotional fit Charlotte runs from the house and gets killed by a car.Humbert then heads to the summer camp and retrieves Lolita; he tells her that her mother is ill as his reasoning for getting her. They then embark on a road trip across the country, forming a romantic yet turbulent relationship along the way. Dolores makes Humbert kiss her for the first time. They share hotel rooms along the way. They have sex, but Humbert claims that he was not even her first lover, as Dolores had had many sexual partners back at camp. He finally admits to Lolita that her mother is dead, she is heart broken by the news, but they continue on their journey. Humbert starts to get irritated by Lolita's antics and her childlike behavior. They finally settle into a home near Beardsley College where Humbert has a teaching position and Lolita is enlisted into school. Despite the danger and the antics, Humbert was in heaven. Dolores also starts demanding stuff in exchange for sex and starts blackmailing Humbert in the middle of sex for more money. Humbert starts getting jealous as Dolores makes friends at her new school. Dolores acts in a school play, written by Clare Quilty. Humbert believes that Dolores is telling her friends about the relationship she shares with Humbert. Humbert believes that Dolores is trying to run away from him. Dolores believes that Humbert murdered her mother.It does not last long, and they decide to head on another road trip. While traveling Humbert discovers that they are being followed, becoming increasingly paranoid he attempts to discover who it is, but it is to no avail. Humbert asks Dolores to take down the license plate number of the car following them. Humbert later finds that Dolores deliberately obscured the number, prompting Humbert to slap her.One day Lolita becomes ill so is admitted to the hospital. The next morning Humbert discovers that someone posing as her uncle took her away. Distraught, Humbert tries to track them down, he stays on their tail for some time but eventually loses them. 3 years later he receives a letter from Lolita telling him that she is married and pregnant and is in need of money.Humbert visits her with the intention of killing her husband, he realizes once he's there that her husband is not the man the stole her from him. He gets her to admit that it was Clare Quilty (Frank Langella) a playwright from the school she attended. He pleas for her to join him once again and to be with him but she refuses. He leaves Lolita and heads directly to Quilty's home to murder him.After a confrontation Humbert shoots Quilty several times killing him. The movie ends with Humbert swerving down the road in an emotionally destroyed state of being with the police on his trail.

Storyline

• In early adolescence, Humbert fell hopelessly and tragically in love with a girl his own age, and, as he grew into adulthood, he never lost his obsession with "nymphets," teenagers who walk a fine line between being a girl and a woman. While looking for a place to live after securing a new teaching position, he meets Charlotte Haze (Melanie Griffith), a pretentious and annoying woman who seems desperately lonely and is obviously attracted to Humbert. Humbert pays her little mind until he meets her 13-year-old daughter Lolita (Dominique Swain), the image of the girl that Humbert once loved. Humbert moves into the Haze home as a boarder and eventually marries Charlotte in order to be closer to Lolita. When Charlotte finds out about Humbert's attraction to her daughter, she flees the house in a rage, only to be killed in an auto accident. Without telling Lolita of her mother's fate, Humbert takes her on a cross-country auto trip, where their relationship begins to move beyond the traditional boundaries of stepfather and step-daughter.. New England, 1947. Having accepted a teaching post at Beardsley College, sophisticated professor of English literature Humbert Humbert rents a room at young widow Charlotte Haze's house in the quiet town of Ramsdale, New Hampshire. But there, an immediate fascination with Charlotte's lovely, soda-drinking 14-year-old daughter Dolores leads to a forbidden, all-consuming passion. Now, the wild flames of desire trap the grizzled academic in a dangerous game of seduction and obsession, attracting unwanted attention. Can Humbert escape the clutches of the destructive, unthinkable lust for gum-chewing Lolita, the unripe woman of his dreams? — Nick Riganas Humbert Humbert, a British professor coming to the US to teach, rents a room in Charlotte Haze's house, but only after he sees her 14-year-old daughter, Dolores (Lolita), to whom he is immediately attracted. Though he hates the mother, he marries her as this is the only way to be close to the girl, who will prove to be too mature for her age. They start a journey together, trying to hide they're not just (step)father and daughter, throughout the country, being followed by someone whom Humbert first suspects to be from the police. The profound jealousy, and maybe some guilt from the forbidden love, seem slowly to drive the man emotionally labile. — Luis Canau