AncientAtBirth wrote:

Whoa, I TOTALLY disagree with that assessment! She just did what she had to do in order to get away from him. Children are psychologically resilient that way. The reason she fell in love with Quilty is because she saw him as freeing her from Humbert who had become an insufferable tyrant.

I'd agree with that view of the book, for sure. However, the movie absolutely comes off the other way. Which is why, despite my deep and abiding love for Jeremy Irons, is why I'm not a huge fan. It turns Humbert into a victim (I think a lot of that comes from how sympathetic Irons' portrayal is, honestly; not his fault but it still fucks things up), and that is just wrong, wrong, WRONG on so many levels. Because whether Lolita was "taking advantage" of Humbert or not, the fact remains that she was like, fucking twelve. And he was like, fucking forty. There is NO excuse for that; the blame squarely falls on the head of the adult in a case like that, regardless of what the child does. Trying to paint Humbert as some kind of victim doesn't fly with my sense of decency at all.