Some books make for good movies, some don't. Judging by this adaptation, Philip Roth's prize-winning novel The Human Stain doesn’t. The fascinating narrative about two fractured souls -- a professor and his much younger lover -- is unaffecting. Both characters, played by Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman, harbor a secret and neither is very credible or likeable. Whether Roth or the filmmakers are responsible for making it difficult to care about them is immaterial to moviegoers. Their masquerades are improbable in a self-important, literary way that proves disconcerting.

Hopkins is miscast as Coleman Silk, a professor of Classics and Dean of a small liberal arts college in Massachusetts. In a deeply ironic case of political correctness, an innocent comment leads to the well-respected academic's resignation. Then another misfortune strikes closer to home. Adrift, he encounters a woman who holds down three jobs: she's a postal worker, a janitor at the college, and a dairymaid. She's also loose, and the seduction of Dean Silk transpires matter-of-factly, at least for her. He's positively rejuvenated. Around the same time he befriends a reclusive writer, stiffly played by Gary Sinise, who acts as the movie's narrator. The nature of Silk's secret, which I won't reveal, is the main reason Hopkins is miscast. His accent and resemblance to Wentworth Miller -- the fine actor playing the young Silk in extended flashbacks -- also strike dissonant chords.

Kidman bares all for the role, and her nudity is a good metaphor for the film's weaknesses. It's not particularly sexy, and not just because she's sleeping with an older man (their age difference isn't as shocking or unusual as the movie would have you believe) or that the woman she's playing has zero charm. There's a missed connection. Kidman and Hopkins are not on top of their games; though both characters are uncomfortable for good reason, he looks bored and she tries too hard. Her secret is more immediately visceral yet still doesn't provoke much feeling. The best-realized figure is her husband, a psychotic Vietnam vet portrayed by Ed Harris.

Roth's tale appears distant -- with inelegant storytelling partly to blame. Convoluted is too strong a word but director Robert Benton (Kramer vs. Kramer, Places in the Heart) never finds a rhythm lurching between contemporary events and the professor's early years. The Human Stain has a lot in common with last year's The Hours, another, more successful literary adaptation starring Kidman and Harris. That movie weaved through time and sets of characters brilliantly. The Human Stain gains its rhythm not from intelligent editing but from a self-serious, tinkling piano score. Wanting to be drawn in emotionally as well as intellectually is a tall but legitimate order. Unless you conclude Roth's novel is impossible to adapt, these veteran filmmakers weren't the best people to fill  it.  

(Released by Miramax and rated "R" for sexuality, nudity and language.)