The Scarlet Letter (1995)

(In French, On Cable TV, July 2020) I will not suggest that a film’s reception is only a cultural thing… but when we’re talking about the 1995 version of The Scarlet Letter, I may digress slightly. Some background first: The Scarlet Letter is an 1850 novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne about an affair between a woman and the leader of the local puritans, which leads to a pregnancy, public shaming, and a life of repentance for her. It’s all quite glum and has become a literary classic widely taught to generations of American kids. The 1995 movie, brought to the screen by English director Roland Joffé, was almost instantly hailed as one of the worst movies of all time. Its sins include wide liberties taken with the original text, near-constant Hollwyoodisms (notably the addition of sex and violence, as well as having half the film take place before the beginning of the novel itself.), inconsistent accents and line readings, actors uneasy in their characters (most notably Demi Moore as the protagonist) and notable lulls in the pacing of a 135-minute film. The critical pile-up in 1995 was nothing short of spectacular, carrying the film all the way to the Razzies (which doesn’t mean much, mind you) and keeping it as a cinephile’s punchline for decades. In watching this version of The Scarlet Letter, I had two advantages: Near-complete ignorance of the original, and a version of the film dubbed in French. Of those two, the dubbing is far more important: As I’ve mentioned a few times, actors who struggle with line reading (Madonna and Keanu Reeves come to mind) often become much better when dubbed by professional French voice actors – now add Moore to that lot. Then there’s the lower expectation placed on French dubs, which are not expected to sound natural at all. Add to that the lack of expectations in watching a film without caring about its fidelity to the original novel and, well, The Scarlet Letter isn’t that bad. It’s long and ludicrous, but not appreciably more so than many other Hollywood serious prestige dramas—Joffé and Moore both clearly wanted those Oscar nominations (a not-insignificant factor in the 1995 critical backlash, I’d claim) and they do fall flat on their faces, but the film itself kind of works even in presenting rote material. Some of the period recreation is pretty good, and the cast is interesting even when it’s not always used well. In other words, The Scarlett Letter may not be that good, but it’s not outright terrible either—and its ridiculousness isn’t always a bad thing. This is not 1995 any more – we don’t have to hate the movie to look cool.