(rated R)
It’s 1998. Anthony Hopkins is Coleman Silk, a Classics professor with a secret. When two of his students have been no-shows in class, he refers to them as ‘spooks’ meaning invisible. But the board of directors takes it as a racial slur and so he resigns. Enter Gary Sinise as Nathan Zukerman a novelist living in a wooded cabin. He’s got a bad case of writer’s block that Hopkins is sure he can cure when he seeks him out to tell his tale. Then there’s Nicole Kidman a post office custodian who becomes Coleman’s lover. The kind of lover that comes with all kinds of baggage. As her sordid past becomes clear so does the fact that she has a wacked-out Viet Nam Vet of a husband played by Ed Harris. The story’s momentum gains as more twists, turns, lies and deceit unfold. Yet while the actors act the heck out of their roles to an Oscar worthy moment, even as childhood secrets are revealed, the story is flawed in delivery, coming off as sad and more dark than is necessary.
