Puritans in Lust

What you don't need to do is watch the 1995 version of The Scarlet Letter starring Demi Moore, though I dream of the day some unfortunate student attempts it as a replacement for the novel. What you do need to do is read the hilarious -- and accurate -- review of it from the New York Times.

"God help me, Hester, I love thee!" declares the Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale, that passionate, skinny-dipping Puritan. "God help me, I love thee, too!" pants Hester Prynne, before melting into his arms, only to break away abruptly from their first kiss. "Nay! We could be hanged for this," she realizes. Hanging, in this case, is no deterrent. Hester and Arthur, played by Demi Moore and Gary Oldman as if they were in "The Red Shoe Diaries" instead of "The Scarlet Letter," are soon rolling around the barn on a pile of grain.

The director, Roland Joffe, should have just called his new movie "Puritans in Lust," labeled it a comedy and gotten it over with. There is plenty of room for interpretation in Hawthorne's novel, but a movie version should never be this goofy. "The Scarlet Letter" is unintentionally funnier than most comedies on screen ...

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