Don't let the subject matter of Vladimir Nabokov's book put you off, it is a brilliant book and one of the most entertaining, thought-provoking, poignant and daring pieces of literature there is.

Stanley Kubrick's 1962 'Lolita' film, while not one of the great director's best, even when comparatively downplayed, is a brave and worthy attempt and is a fascinating film that gets funnier, more layered, sensual and better with each viewing. This is not personal bias talking, speaking as someone who is not afraid to admit that Kubrick's debut 'Fear and Desire' was a shockingly bad misfire and that he didn't properly find his style until 'The Killing', with his first masterpiece being 'Paths of Glory'.

This 1997 film, directed by Adrian Lyne and starring Jeremy Irons, Dominique Swain, Melanie Griffith and Frank Langella, could have been a disaster and to be honest in hindsight I prepared myself for it to be. Actually it is a much better film than expected. It is more faithful to the book and there is more of the story, which understandably will make some prefer this film. The book is very challenging to adapt and like Kubrick's this is a more than laudable effort that should be applauded for trying. At the same time though there is something missing, a case of being more faithful not always equalling better. Despite more of the story and details being here, Kubrick's version, even when hindered by issues with the economy and censorship which played a part in not having the full impact of the book, this reviewer found more layered and with much more of a sense of danger and ahead-of-its-time feel, with this version almost too conservative and soft-focused in places.

It also drags badly in some of the final third, especially towards the end with some long-winded scenes that go on longer than they needed to, giving the film a slightly overlong and stretched feel. And while the cast do very well on the whole, Melanie Griffith disappoints and is no match for the hilarious and poignant Shelley Winters in the earlier version. Griffith is too attractive, and not only is more irritating than funny but fails to bring any tragic dimension to the character.

However, 'Lolita' (1997) is an incredibly well-made film, with spot-on attention to detail and it's shot and photographed superbly. Lyne is no Kubrick, which in all honesty is a big ask, but does a very solid job directing, directing with an elegance and tension. The script, especially the beautifully delivered and powerful narration, is intelligently written, with more focus on the tragic and sexual elements, which are pretty well done and well balanced. Some parts are quite moving and there is a genuine sensuality, one does miss the deliciously black humour though. The story is mostly well executed and is absorbing, everything included is well told and never incoherent and rarely dull but could have had slightly more impact.

Jeremy Irons makes for a splendid Humbert, a cruel but tortured character here (thankfully not the total creep that Humbert could have been in lesser hands) that Irons plays with the right amount of cruelty and pathos, while he is somewhat too civilised to be classed as a monster he is very believable as a seducer. Dominique Swain in the title role, like Sue Lyon, is too old, but is compellingly sensual and gorgeously seductive but also affecting. The chemistry between them is beautifully played. Frank Langella is suitably odious as Quilty, and just as sinister as Peter Sellers. Before one forgets, the music score is really quite marvellous, whimsical, haunting and elegiac, like its own character, and there is a preference to the one in the earlier version.

All in all, much better than expected and certainly not a sacrilege. It's just that despite being more faithful it feels like there is something missing as a result of perhaps being too faithful. 7/10 Bethany Cox

As a 14 year old in 1921 Cannes France, Humbert fell in love with older Annabelle but she dies from Typhus. In 1947, Humbert Humbert (Jeremy Irons) starts a professor job in New England. He rents a room from Charlotte Haze (Melanie Griffith) who has a flirtatious 14 year old daughter Lolita (Dominique Swain). Humbert ends up marrying dislikeful Charlotte to stay close to Lolita. Charlotte discovers Humbert's secret lust for Lolita and gets killed by a car. Humbert drives Lolita on a road trip but lies to her about her mother. There is always Clare Quilty (Frank Langella) around.

The opening shot of Lolita is way too thirsty. The sprinklers getting her wet is completely over the top. It reeks of desperation from trying to top Kubrick. It's like a bad teenie porno. Melanie Griffith is an inferior Charlotte. Her character is smaller and less interesting as a minor role in this film. In another anti-Kubrick move, Quilty is reduced back to his original size. Jeremy Irons and Dominique Swain take up most of the space in this over 2 hours movie for better or worst. Dominique does a nice job. Jeremy Iron is a great actor as always.

My biggest problem is that his character is constantly the victim in this version. He is superb in convincing the validity of his love for Lolita. Jeremy Iron does this sympathetic weakness. He does the same thing in 'Damage' but in this case, it's very off-putting. It goes beyond the fear of discovery. While it may be more true to the intention, it makes it a harder thing to watch. I always wonder what the movie would be like from Lolita's point of view. By the last act, I got very tired of Humbert and his patheticness. At that point, I found his narration like fingernails on the chalkboard. The movie is already too long and I couldn't wait for it to be over.

One of the best and most important novels written in English in the 20th century and they cannot get it right on the screen.

Maybe it's the fact that the novel itself is so packed with word play and games that it simply doesn't transfer that well to a different medium. A voice-over can maybe give us some of it -- that famous first paragraph -- but the problem is that there is such mellifluous gamy prose on every single page. (I think there are only about three sections in which Humbert doesn't undercut his expressions of love and guilt with irony.) How can we transpose HH's offhand rhetorical remarks like, "Where is the rapist in therapist? Where is the jest in majesty?" And that's not to mention all of the literary allusions or comic references to pop culture.

The story itself is so simple that, if Lolita weren't twelve years old, it would be just another love story. And, I was, by the way, surprised when this film was released at the horror some people felt -- oh, my gosh, a movie about pedophilia. I mean -- in this day and age? Movies about thinly disguised pedophilia of course have been around for years -- "Sundays and Cybele", "Pretty Baby," among others. And the Shirley Temple movies may not have been all that innocent either, she prancing about in those tiny skirts reeking of popcorn and lollipops, wagging her tail, a forty-year-old midget for all we know. And if we think of Lolita as innocent and corrupted, we don't know as much about what's happening with kids that age as we might like to think. This is a story about pedophilia in the way that "Faust" is a story about Satanism.

Jeremy Irons is superb here, as he is in almost everything he's done. One can't help comparing this version to Kubrick's earlier one, and this one isn't as good. Dominique Swain is no Lolita. She's an improvement over Sue Lyons, to be sure, but not actress enough to break a grown man's heart, or to project that peculiar combination of meanness, crudity, and ultimate loneliness that Lolita embodied. Melanie Griffith does what she can with the role of Charlotte Haze but I thought Shelley Winters brought a bit of additional, maybe unintended vulgarity to the part. Griffith is serene and self-confident, which is closer to the Charlotte of the novel, but for unashamed raw hunger nobody can beat Winters.

The direction is competent, not much more than that. But this is a hollow movie. It fails to capture the outrageous humor of the novel ("I was a pentapod monster...."). The score is lugubrious. The photography gloomy where the novel is filled with summer warmth, aspens, butterflies and sunshine. In other words, the movie treats the novel as a "masterpiece," deserving serious treatment, which is the kiss of death for "Lolita." Like Strick's attempt to film "Ulysses," all the humor is lost and what's left is a kind of humdrum story about people talking to one another without having that much to say. But if you are interested in unusual love stories I can recommend seeing this. See Kubrick's piece as well. They're rather different, because Kubrick, maybe realizing he could never capture the wisecracks in the novel, at least brought in Peter Sellers to provide laughs. But here, Quilty, Frank Langella, is little more than an ominous shadowy presence, whereas both in the novel and in Kubrick's film he was a terrible and hilarious tease.