Shannon Welsh The Human Stain is a movie that deals with racism and trying to pass for being white in the U.S. Wentworth Miller was a flawless actor in this film. Not only did he play his part well, he was not miscast as Coleman Silk. Coleman Silk is supposed to be a light complexion black American male who can pretend to be a white American man. Wentworth Miller is actually part Black American even though he has Syrian and Russian ancestry in real life. Wentworth Miller is very handsome and I thought Wentworth was a perfect choice for this part. However, I thought the producers should have selected a mixed race actor to play elderly Coleman Silk. Anthony Hopkins is an excellent actor but he was miscast for this role. I do not know who they could have picked, but there are tons of actors always looking for work so why not give someone else a chance? The cinematography was an 8/10. The plot was 7/10. Overall acting from the entire cast 8/10.

India M. A chance circumstance of birth. One child might be handsome, one may be deformed. One never knows what advantages or disadvantages they will be bestowed in life. A fascinating tale of self hatred, undeserved and unnecessary. But not surprising for the time period. When we can't show who we really are, isn't that what we are doing? An unusual story, but most likely a common one. Played understated by both Nicole Kidman and Anthony Hopkins. Ed Harris is menacing as soon as he appears on screen. Gary Sinise is as we, the audience,knowing nothing. Then gradually, it is slowly revealed like an onion. Layer after layer. Nicole Kidman obviously did her research on battered women. It all rings true.Each character struggling with what they do and do not know. What do they choose to do with that? Wentworth Miller was a brilliant choice as the young Coleman.The irony in that casting is revealed in the trivia notes, so don't read them until the film is over. I was enthralled by this film and count it among my favorites of all time.

runamokprods A study in contradictions; a moving film that doesn't really work, with some of our finest actors pouring their souls into roles they aren't really right for, but touching something human and deep enough to confound the eye-rolling one is tempted to indulge. This is one of those 'failures' that is far more interesting than most successes. A film of ideas, even if some of those ideas are facile or muddled. If it doesn't really work as a treatise on race and racism in America – which on the surface seems it's grand ambition – it does succeed as a May-December romance with between two people who have lost so much that logic is trumped by need. (It's just about impossible to discuss some of the most glaring failures without giving away key plot twists, so I will be circumspect).This is one of those films it would be easy to tear apart, with key scenes and twists that simply don't work. But I didn't find I wanted to. I'd rather remember the moments of human honesty that transcended the flaws. I'll remember Anthony Hopkins dancing, first with Gary Sinese, then later with Nicole Kidman, not the heavy handed and tin-eared social commentary.

Desertman84 The Human Stain is a drama film that stars Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman together with Gary Sinise and Ed Harris.It was directed by Robert Benton. The screenplay by Nicholas Meyer is based on the novel of the same name by Philip Roth. Set in the late 1990s at the height of the Clinton sex-scandal, 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, 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 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.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.Though it fails to reach its potential to become an excellent film,it remains a challenging, thought-provoking film, buoyed with finely crafted performances from both Hopkin and Kidman for at the end of the movie,you do care for the people here.