THE SCARLET LETTER (1995)

THE SCARLET LETTER (R) It doesn't adapt Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel so much as give it a makeover. Demi Moore, her hair hanging down in free-spirited ringlets, is Hester Prynne, who arrives on the shores of Puritan Massachusetts, minus her husband (Robert Duvall), and falls in love with the Reverend Dimmesdale (Gary Oldman). When she gets pregnant, she is forced to wear the scorn of her fellows by walking around with an embroidered red A on her bosom. With its dewy-eyed love story and its ''action'' climax pitting settlers against noble Native Americans, Roland Joffa's film is a ponderously overstuffed package. Moore brandishes her scarlet letter snootily, as if she'd been forced to wear something from last year's fashion collections. C

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