Without roots, the tree withers

THE HUMAN STAIN, much boiled down from Philip Roth's novel, is about the short, turbulent, retirement of Coleman Silk (Anthony Hopkins) and the poor, unhappy young woman (Nicole Kidman) who has entwined herself with him.

Coleman was the dean of a small New England college. He was hired decades ago, its first Jewish faculty member, as the professor of Classics, and eventually became Dean, having lifted the college from mediocrity to excellence. Then he is falsely, we know, accused of using a racial slur. The college faculty, most of them hired by him, seem eager to find him guilty, so he resigns and retires. The fuss is too much for his wife (Phyllis Newman, all too briefly), who has a fatal heart attack. In the space of a very few days, Coleman Silk has lost his reputation, his career, part of his pension, and his beloved wife.

After some time he hunts up an under-employed novelist, Nathan Zuckerman (Gary Sinese), and asks him to write a compelling novel about the injustices Coleman has suffered. Instead, Nathan suggests that Coleman write it himself. The book is never finished, but a strong friendship develops between the two.

After more months pass, Coleman encounters a very attractive, if somewhat rough-edged, young (half his age) woman, Faunia (Nichole Kidman), who is grindingly poor and unspeakably lonely. They begin an affair. Bit by bit, little secrets about her past are revealed. She wasn't born poor, not at all. Born into wealth, but after her mother remarried, she was repeatedly molested by her stepfather, and ran away at age 14. Her education stopped then, and she settled into the life of the working class. At some point she married a Vietnam veteran, who occasionally beat her and is still stalking her. We see her ex-husband, Lester (Ed Harris), as an out-patient at a psychiatric hospital; he variously denies having beaten Faunia and complains that he should have beaten her more. He is determined to kill her because, while he was confined in a mental hospital, she packed up and took off - with their two small children. The children perished in a fire shortly after; Lester blames Faunia, unaware that Faunia still carries the gilded boxes of their ashes and had made a very sincere effort to kill herself.

But Faunia is not the only person tormented by her past. Coleman can recall his youth in New Jersey, the best student in his high school, and an amateur boxing champ who was on his way to an athletic scholarship at a prestigious college. The problem is that Coleman's father (Harry Lennix, in an appearance too brief to qualify for an Oscar), a man of obvious education and professional demeanor and gravitas, wants Coleman to stop boxing and prepare for a learned profession after attending and graduating Howard University. Howard?! Yes, Coleman is African-American - in an age (apparently just after WW2) where well-bred people would call him a Negro - the lightest skinned member of his rather light skinned family. Coleman's father dies shortly thereafter -- working as a dining car waiter who answers to "Boy". Coleman enlists in the Navy, checking the racial box for White, and thereafter keeps his true background a shameful secret. Thereafter he tells people he is Jewish, denying both his race and Christian upbringing.

These two wounded souls have found each other. Yet they are haunted by the ghosts of their past, secrets they cannot even tell each other.

Some people thought it was implausible casting to have Anthony Hopkins as someone of African descent - but he actually makes it seem believable (Wentworth Miller, who is of mixed race ancestry and has already played Anglo-Saxon types, plays young Coleman in the flashbacks); after all, Hopkins did play Othello on the BBC without make-up. It's perhaps a stretch to imagine Nicole Kidman as a Tobacco Road type, but she carries it off. Anna Deveare Smith does a very touching performance as Coleman's mother, and shows that she's much overdue for a starring role. Jacinda Barrett as a college love of Coleman, the only person he ever revealed his secret to, whose reaction solidified his determination to hide his background. Mimi Kuzac is the replacement dean. Everyone turns in a good performance.

The major drawback to this movie is that it's grim. No comedy. No potential as a musical. If this sort of thing appeals to you, consider SOPHIE'S CHOICE. If a member of the faculty falling in love with the cleaning girl is a romance that intrigues you, try CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD.