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Buena Vista Pictures Distribution
Quite a few movies based upon books are excellent, but some definitely are not. The 1995 Roland Joffé-directed adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s seminal novel “The Scarlet Letter” is perhaps one of the strongest examples of an adaptation that just didn’t work, and for a variety of reasons. The film was absolutely decimated by critics upon its release and has a measly 13% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the most heavily-criticized aspect being the screenplay by Douglas Day Stewart, who also, bafflingly, wrote the Oscar-nominated script for “An Officer and a Gentleman.” Perhaps his success with the romantic elements of that movie led Stewart to believe that turning Hawthorne’s novel — which is about an adulteress in 17th century Puritan Massachusetts trying to live her life after the fact — into a kind of sultry tragic romance was a good idea, but the final result was a massive disaster.
Joffé’s “Scarlet Letter” was nominated for seven Golden Raspberry Awards (aka the infamous and now utterly useless “Razzies”), and it truly is a giant raspberry of a movie. While Oldman and Moore are both great actors in other roles, they just do not fit together as the characters they’re playing here, and their chemistry is deeply lackluster. “The Scarlet Letter” is deadly serious but impossible to take seriously, making it one of the worst films of all time.
Moore and Oldman’s The Scarlet Letter was a flop that fell into obscurity
Buena Vista Pictures Distribution
“The Scarlet Letter” was absolutely reviled at the time of its release, with a domestic box office take of only $10 million against a $46 million budget. (The film’s international gross is harder to pin down; suffice it to say, though, it was not a hit.) Reviews had almost nothing positive to say either, save for the occasional compliment paid to Oldman’s performance as the adulterous minister Arthur Dimmesdale.
Truthfully, however, Moore’s turn as the film’s protagonist, Hester Prynne, is really the best thing about this mess of a movie (even though she was nominated for a Razzie), which should come as no surprise to those who’ve recently discovered (or rediscovered) the incredible actor thanks to her role in Coralie Fargeat’s 2024 body horror hit “The Substance.” Even the usually-great Robert Duvall is pretty good as Hester’s lost husband, Roger Chillingworth, but the movie is just such a wrong-headed mess that anything they try to do to make it work is sadly in vain. (In this version of the story, Hester and Arthur live happily ever after escaping from the Puritans as they’re being slaughtered by the Algonquian natives. It’s bad!)
Thankfully, there are plenty of great Demi Moore movies and great Gary Oldman movies for anyone who truly wants to see these stars shine. And for anyone who really wants to see an adaptation of “The Scarlet Letter,” there’s always any one of the nearly a dozen other adaptations. Seriously, there’s one from 1908, 1911, 1913, 1917 … people really love “The Scarlet Letter.” For my money’s worth, I’m always going to go with the fun high school re-imagining, “Easy A,” with Emma Stone. Now that’s how you adapt “The Scarlet Letter” for contemporary audiences.
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