ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, October 14, 1995                   TAG: 9510170112
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: B12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

'SCARLET LETTER' GETS AN F

First, a warning: Any high school student who tries to base a book report on the new film version of "The Scarlet Letter" is in big trouble. The opening credits admit that it's "freely adapted" from Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel and they're not kidding.

This lumbering, overwrought melodrama bears more resemblance to a paperback bodice-ripper, though that comparison, too, is really unfair. Most bodice-rippers have some historical accuracy and well-constructed plots. The movie doesn't.

Instead, it depends on Demi Moore's one-note portrayal of Hester Prynne as an early American feminist and free spirit who gets the hots for her preacher, Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale (Gary Oldman), after she catches him skinnydipping. Then she gets in touch with her own body in her new bathtub. Meanwhile, her evil husband Roger (Robert Duvall) has been captured by the Indians and is dancing around a campfire with a dead deer on his head.

(As Dave Barry would say here, I swear I am not making this up.)

In any case, Hester and Arthur decide to be honest with each other by saying "God help me, I love thee," and "Was I alive before I laid eyes on thee?" Those are not the worst lines of dialogue that writer Douglas Day Stewart came up with, and he got no help at all from director Roland Joffe who overinflates this story to ridiculous proportions. (It's more than two hours long!)

As for the rest of the cast, Joan Plowright provides some welcome (and intentional) comic relief. With his on-again-off-again Scottish accent, Oldman seems to understand the true nature of the material and handles it playfully. The rest of the cast looks uncomfortable in long dresses and funny hats.

In the end, "The Scarlet Letter" suffers from the same fatal flaws that sank last year's historical turkey "Jefferson in Paris." It takes itself far too seriously and because of that, it's preachy and boring.

The Scarlet Letter x

A Hollywood Pictures release playing at the Tanglewood Mall. 130 min. Rated R for violence, nudity, sexual material. 


 by CNB