Disgrace

Based on J.M. Coetzee's 1999 novel of the same name, "Disgrace" is a meandering story fraught with unresolved racial tension and flaccid subplot development. John Malkovich is compelling as David Lurie, a horny romantic poetry college professor at Cape Town University who takes advantage of his position to seduce a black female student. The girl's thuggish boyfriend discovers the affair and quickly brings Lurie's tenure at the university to a scandalous end. Without missing a beat, the gleefully unrepentant Lurie retreats to live with his daughter Lucy (Jessica Haines) at her rural East Cape farm home that she shares with three dogs and Petrus (Eriq Ebouaney), a black farm hand who treats Lucy's property as his own. While Petrus is away on vacation, a trio local thugs attack the father and daughter at Lucy's home--setting Lurie on fire and raping his daughter off-screen. Wounded, outraged, and humiliated, Lurie attempts to extract justice when he discovers that the thugs are related to Petrus. However Lucy, impregnated during the rape, accepts her fate as a lesbian woman relegated to serve the native peasant class of the country she now calls home. Adapted by the husband-and-wife-duo of Steve Jacobs (director) and Anna-Maria Monticelli (screenwriter), "Disgrace" is an infuriating allegory about a sacrificial victim. Martyrdom never looked so pathetic.
Not Rated. 121 mins. (D) (One Star)