The Human Stain, based on Philip Roth’s novel, is the story of a man improbably named Coleman Silk (a solid Anthony Hopkins),“one of the first Jews to teach ethics” and a 35-year veteran of a New England college he has helped transform from mediocre to excellent. But his devotion counts for little when he is accused by his peers of using a racial slur (“spooks”) in reference to two perpetually absent students who turn out to be black. He bristles at the “spectacularly false” charges of racism, arguing that he used the word as a synonym for “ghost” (as in, “do they exist, or are they spooks?”). None of his colleagues speak up to support him, prompting him to resign his post as dean. On that same bleak day, his wife (Phyllis Newman) unexpectedly dies.

Six months later, Silk still blames the college’s “politically correct” faculty for killing his wife and ruining his career. So when he makes the acquaintance of Nathan Zuckerman (Gary Sinese), a reclusive writer who has weathered both a divorce and a bout of prostate cancer, he asks him to write his life story. It is Zuckerman (who periodically narrates the film, a tired device) who uncovers Silk’s “terrible” secret: [SPOILER ALERT] He is a fair-skinned black man who has “passed” for white ever since 1944, when his high school boxing coach advised him not to tell talent scouts he was “colored.”

Sounds intense, and perhaps Roth’s tome — which I have not read — lives up to that description. But the film version of The Human Stain, directed by Robert Benton (Places in the Heart, Kramer vs. Kramer) and written by Nicholas Meyer (who penned the time-travel adventure Time After Time and three Star Trek movies), is surprisingly timid when it comes playing the race card. It is revealed early on — too early on, dramatically speaking — that Silk is African-American; aside from a few flashbacks that show the young Silk (Wentworth Miller) struggling with his ethnicity (“You’re white as snow and you think like a slave” says mom Anna Deavere Smith, in the film’s best line), this is not a penetrating examination of self-loathing (something gay people know a little about), but a dreary, clichéd, opposites-attract Love Story.

The lonely, embittered Silk falls for a stunning 34-year-old custodian (huh?) with greasy hair named Faunia (Nicole Kidman, tragically miscast). We know she’s a tough cookie because she chews gum, chain-smokes and spouts cynical remarks on the order of “I don’t do sympathy.” (Note to Meyer and Kidman: even po’ white trash can afford shampoo.) Turns out she too is running away from her past, which includes a homicidal ex-husband (played with appropriate menace by Ed Harris) and a couple of dead children. The movie settles into soap opera groove from this point on, with Silk trying to work up the courage to tell Faunia he’s a man of color (she of all people is going to judge him?) and Harris’ whacked-out Vietnam vet determined to put an end to their love affair — a disappointing turn of events considering the potential of the material, not to mention the pedigree of the filmmakers involved.

In the end, the weak-kneed Human Stain is neither a think piece nor an updated variation on the controversial ’60s book Black Like Me (It’s certainly no Portnoy’s Complaint.). To paraphrase a character in the film who refuses to support Silk when he is charged with racism, Robert, Nicholas, Tony, Nicole — I can’t be with you on this.

Recommended current releases: Pieces of April, Mystic River, Alien: The Director’s Cut, Sylvia, Kill Bill: Volume 1, Out of Time, Runaway Jury, The Returner*, Secret Lives: Hidden Children and Their Rescuers During WII*, Lost in Translation, Bubba Ho-Tep*.

*indicates limited engagement

Kyle Counts is the film critic for the Gay and Lesbian Times