An innocence betrayed

THE British Board

of Film Classification called Lolita ''a challenging and compassionate treatment of an established literary classic''.

Jeremy Irons, playing the man in lust with his 12-year-old stepdaughter, says: ''Nabokov constantly reminds you that what he (Humbert) is doing is wrong and he knows it's wrong.'' The teenie star, Dominique Swain, says: ''My hips were moving but I didn't know what I was doing.'' And the Daily Mail shrieked: ''Perverts will flock to this travesty.''

So what do ''ordinary'' cinemagoers think? I took six movie-lovers to see director Adrian Lyne's interpretation of the ''classic'' at the Odeon, Renfield Street. Interestingly, despite all the earnest debates on radio and TV and in newspapers, not one of them would have gone to see the film if I hadn't hauled them along. And at the end, none of them claimed to have been glad they'd paid the visit.

n For Margaret Thomson Davis, veteran author of 21 books, with a new one, Gallachers, set in Possilpark, due out in July, anger was the main emotion she had to deal with on viewing the film, and for a very valid reason. ''I was sexually abused as a child. As a novelist, I deal with emotion all the time but this film upset me because it stirred up all the distress and pain of my own experience. Up to the time I saw the film, I coped with my life calmly and efficiently. Since seeing it, I have had nightmares. When I got home I wept uncontrollably for the little girl I once was and all the pain and betrayal I suffered.

''I was angry because every effort was being made to couch reality in soft, beautiful, sympathetic, acceptable terms. It is, in fact, a male writer's fantasy, made even more so by the film-makers. The scenery was beautiful, the man was handsome, words like tenderness and true love were used to describe his feelings. The girl was shown sometimes as though she was the seducer. She was a wee 12-year-old girl! I felt no sympathy for the man. He was a cunning manipulative paedophile. It was a dishonest film, a sad fantasy.''

n Derek Brown, 19, a student of radio production and sound recording at North Glasgow College, commented: ''It was well shot, but Jeremy Irons is the same in every film he makes, all hollow-cheeked and tragic. He was even the same in Diehard.

''I am a child of the Tarantino and Trainspotting generation. You wouldn't try drugs because of Trainspotting; you wouldn't abuse children because of this film. It tries to make what the guy does forgivable but it isn't. He talks in a mocking way about what he's doing, almost as though he's proud of himself.

''I wondered at Mario Kassar's involvement in a film like this until it got to the gruesome bit at the end, which seemed more like his former work, Total Recall etc.

''It wasn't a film I'd have chosen to go to. It's funny how they try to ban low-budget realistic films, but this is treated with a certain reverence because it's big budget with big-name people.''

n Chick Lyall is a musician and composer, in his 30s. He said: ''It was beautifully filmed and I thought Jeremy Irons was quite memorable in the role of Humbert; the role was tailor-made for him.

''But I felt embarrassed at being there. The material, given how disturbing it was, was handled very well, except for the five minutes of bloody murder near the end which was quite unnecessary. The eroticism wasn't overplayed but there were times when I felt uncomfortable. The girl was very well acted, a girl playing on her looks and youth and awakening sexuality. The man was pathetic, but not a victim. He was an intelligent man; he should have been able to cope with his feelings.''

n Peter MacDonald, 39, is a nurse whose work involved counselling young people. He noted: ''Artistically the film was beautifully shot. But what concerns me is the young actress. Adults can choose what they take part in, but she was 14 when she made this film and should not have been used in this way. That was the child abuse . . . by the film-makers.

Yes, there are plenty of girls like Lolita everywhere, being manipulated, looking nearly grown-up and imitating certain grown-up things, but still just children. She was 100% victim, and the man, for all his air of tragic self-pity, deserved no sympathy. Although, I admit, if he was a real person, he should get professional help.''

n Margaret Gray, a retired social worker, commented: ''It was exquisitely filmed, with some beautiful camerawork. The last bloodthirsty 10 minutes jarred. I was terribly uncomfortable at the bedroom scenes, especially when he virtually raped her. It was dreadful, the kind of thing you would do anything in your power to prevent.

''The fact that the young actress played the role so well was also worrying. So was the fact that Irons played his role as a victim. If he was real and here today, he'd been on the sex offenders' register. What he was doing, right from the start, was grooming the child for sex. Little things, gestures, keeping his door open so that he could watch her, helping her with her socks and shoes. This is what paedophiles do, they gradually groom their target for the role they want them to play.

''The very first time he saw her, when she was lying on the grass, soaked, her body revealed by the wet clothes, he stared and stared. That scene made my stomach turn. Getting involved with the mother is another thing these men do. He was ruthless, feeding the mother with pills, using her very callously with no guilt.

''At the summer camp, when all the kids were laughing and waving, he smiled, immediately assuming he was getting a come-on, yet these were just kids waving. The beautiful photography lulls you. It's all very limpid and lovely . . . that makes the theme even more damaging.''

n Wendy Gorman, 37, has two daughters, aged 9 and 12. She said: ''I hated it. Marrying the mother then causing her to kill herself was abominable, but he walked off from that scot-free. He was calculating all the way through, totally unscrupulous.

''The girl reminded me of my daughters; the acting was superb. She had that same gawky clumsiness, that childish way of posing, trying on lipstick, trying to act sexy without really meaning it. It's something all little girls do, and for this man to take advantage was disgusting. It was about male abuse of power, not just a man having power over a woman, but over a child. It made me angry and depressed. As for the murder scene, it was hideous; I just wanted to walk out.''

These were the main comments of my viewing panel but quite a few interesting observations came out in our discussion afterwards. Margaret Gray remembered the scene with the fly-paper, presumably a reference to entrapment. But who was supposed to be trapped? ''Perhaps they meant the man, trapped by his obsession. But of course, it was the girl who was caught. That upset me, that the film focused so much on his anguish, without pointing to the damage to the girl, lifelong damage she herself still didn't understand.''

None of us thought the film - which has not yet found a major distributor in the US but is being taken up by Cable TV - should be banned. But the question was, as Peter asked: ''Why on earth did they make it in the first place?''

Both Margarets were distressed by the way the girl was shown to be so corrupted by Humbert that she began to take control, initiating moves, making overtures, using sex to get money or favours. Wendy despised the way Humbert pursued the ''real'' paedophile who ''stole'' his Lolita, pretending to himself (and us) that he was somehow better than the other.

As for me, I wish they hadn't asked me to go. The photography and direction were very pretty but self-conscious and pretentious, Jeremy Irons has always been a drip, and - while I quite like reading Nabokov - I'd have preferred that all this money and talent be used on something completely different. Artistic? Maybe. But try handing in photos of this kind of congress to Boots and you'll have the cops on your doorstep. And quite right too.