You could try to imagine a worse film, but why bother? As a film and as an adaptation ("freely adapted" is perhaps the greatest understatement since our involvement in Vietnam was labeled a "police action") of a book, it's a complete failure. The acting ranges from the clueless to the atrocious. Gary Oldman is apparently trying to do a Scottish accent, Demi Moore is just plain terrible, and Robert Duvall is nuts. The soft-glow sex scene is risible. There's no tension to the story because Oldman & Moore don't appear to have souls to lose. Instead of a perceptive & morally soaked tale of guilt, sin, and conscience, this is a trite, gushy story about being true to yourself. It's basically a Disney cartoon message, except without as sophisticated a presentation. The script (it's idea of 17th century English is lots of thees & thous) is as bad as everything else, substituting a nick of time rescue happy ending for Hawthorne's. So bad that it's not even enjoyable on a camp level. C-R-A-P.
Review of The Scarlet Letter
