Philip Roth’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Human Stain grapples with slippery and insidious issues. The idea of turning such a contentious novel into a film was always going to be a mad stretch. Robert Benton’s film succeeds in miring Roth’s story about a brilliant black man who denies his colour, in sapping and unbelievable melodrama. The result is an unforgivably turgid lecture about political correctness, and the star-studded cast fail to declare any of their baggage at the opening credits.

Start trying to swallow now. Anthony Hopkins plays a gifted black with pale skin. His glittering academic career is destroyed when he uses the word “spooks” in a lecture and is accused of racism. The power of the film swings on this irony like a barn door. Too proud to reveal his roots, the venerable egghead is tossed on the scrap-heap. He promptly falls into the arms of a damaged trailer-trash vamp played by Nicole Kidman, and they anguish in tearstained close-up until Kidman’s lunatic ex-husband (Ed Harris) rams his pickup truck into the plot.

The romance is as easy to swallow as an 8ft sword. The back-stories feel like entirely different films. And entire reels would be served by cattle prods rather than direction.

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