Dismissed as pornography when the novel was first released, Lolita is no stranger to controversy. Vladimir Nabokov first published his tale of Humbert Humbert, a man doomed to love only young girls, in 1955. Four years passed before an American publisher agreed to print the scandalous work. Forty years later, Lolita remains the center of debate as Adrian Lyne's film based on the novel tries to attract the support of wary American distributors.

But why was Lyne, director of such saucy tales as 9 1/2 Weeks, Fatal Attraction, and An Indecent Proposal, so eager to adapt Nabokov's infamous novel? The book has already been brought to the screen once. In 1962, Stanley Kubrick directed a version of Lolita from an Academy-Award-nominated script Nabokov wrote himself.

Kubrick's liberal treatment of Lolita (* 1/2) probably inspired the remake. Lyne's version, based on a loyal screenplay by Stephen Schiff, remains true to the novel's major events and important dialogue. Nabokov's original script was a 400-page affair far too long for filming. Although Nabokov further revised and cropped the script, Kubrick ultimately decided to use only a small fraction of the author's material in the movie.

When Kubrick filmed Lolita, he was faced with the formidable task of earning the Production Code Administration's Seal of Approval. Without it, securing a distribution deal would be impossible. To get Lolita past the censors, Kubrick was forced to make drastic changes to the story, removing virtually all traces of sexuality (for instance, the seduction scene became a slapstick gimmick involving a folding cot).

The result was disastrous, at least as far as its relevance to the novel is concerned. Kubrick's Lolita runs for more than two and a half hours, but spins in agonizing circles around its theme. James Mason mastered the brooding Humbert Humbert, but never gets the chance to explore his controversial obsession. Meanwhile, Kubrick allowed Peter Sellers free-reign (which Sellers gleefully abuses) as Clare Quilty, Humbert's nemesis. Already in peril of not making any sense, the movie folds under Sellers's meaningless character sketches.

Some critics generously forgive the mess Kubrick made of Lolita, citing the strict industry standards as the real culprit. Considering the devastating impact that removing all hints of deviant sexuality from a story about deviant sexuality had on Lolita, Kubrick should have recognized that the time was not right for such a film.

Will the time ever be right for Lolita? Lyne attempts to remedy Kubrick's error in his controversial new version by swinging to the opposite extreme and embracing the sexual nature of his material. But no one in Hollywood wants to be attached to a piece of "child pornography," so Lolita is currently screening only in select countries. Lyne's film focuses on the way Humbert's obsession destroyed the lives he touched, while Kubrick chooses not to reveal Lolita's tragic fate. The reader learns in the first pages of Lolita that the heroine has died in childbirth, reinforcing the novel's sense of innocence lost.

Jeremy Irons has plenty of experience playing doomed lovers, and he dons the role of Humbert like a second skin. However, where Irons proves his merit is by earning both loathing and sympathy from the audience. Humbert is a man who has lost his childhood love and has spent his life searching for her in young prostitutes and underage nymphets. He is a demented genius proud of his intellect, a foreigner who indulges in French witticisms. Irons's cool, gravelly voice is a perfect compliment to the character, and his talented acting makes the part entirely convincing.

The title role goes to Dominique Swain, the alluring young beauty who played another flirtatious teen in last summer's Face/Off. Lyne's treatment of Lolita proves to be the movie's fatal flaw. Instead of trying to make Humbert's pedophilic instincts unique to his character, Lyne uses Lolita to seduce the audience as well. Taking every opportunity to exploit Lolita's juvenile sexuality, Lyne introduces Lolita in wet, transparent clothes, and allows the camera to sneak frequent glimpses up her skirt.

But getting the audience to understand Humbert's obsession is not the novel's greatest challenge. The element most difficult to capture in Lolita is its off-kilter sense of satire: the tragedy at the story's core is obscured by the Humbert's wry observations about American culture. The comic element translates rather awkwardly to film, and it seems to have stumped both Kubrick and Lyne.

As Charlotte Haze, the annoying mother who stands between Humbert and his coy nymphet, Melanie Griffith underplays her character's impending doom and amplifies herself as a stereotypical nagging bimbo. On the other hand, Lyne manages to drain the humor while preserving the original dialogue from the frantic encounter that precludes Quilty's execution.

To a certain extent, the film shows that Lyne recognizes the artistic and cinematic qualities of the story, while somehow missing the genius and human insight of Nabokov's novel. Directorial flourishes often overpower the subtleties of the movie's most crucial scenes. For instance, Humbert and Quilty's first encounter, a vast improvement over the Sellers-dominated scene in Kubrick, is conspicuously cross-cut with the electric crackles of an outdoor bug-zapper.

A story like Lolita must be handled with discretion. The audience needs a certain amount of information to understand Humbert's neurosis, but Lyne approaches the point of overkill with sex scenes and brazenly suggestive symbols (Lolita constantly sucks on bananas or candy). Lyne faithfully translates Lolita to the screen, but something important is still missing from his characters.

This time around, the controversy surrounding Lolita doesn't accurately forecast a high-quality, ground-breaking piece of art. When Lolita finally opens in American theaters, audiences will most likely be left wondering what the fuss was about.