After that I couldn't fail to notice that the script by Douglas Day Stewart gives new meaning to the phrase "free adaptation". Plot, that strikes very little resemblance to Hawthorne's text, starts in Boston 1666. Hester Prynne (played by Demi Moore), free-thinking English woman comes there in order to prepare home for husband Roger (played by Robert Duvall), who should accompany her later. Free- spirited and strong-willed Hester soon comes at odds with her Puritan neighbours and joins group of colony's outcasts led by cynical Harriet Hibbons (played by Joan Plowright). In the meantime she becomes attracted to Arthur Dimmesdale (played by Gary Oldman), charismatic young priest who preaches peaceful coexistence with Indians. After hearing news about Roger's capture and subsequent death at the hands of Indians two of them start a love affair. When Hester bears child, she is punished by Puritan community and forced to wear dress with letter "A" in public, thus being branded as adulteress. When her apparently alive husband returns from captivity, he takes different identity and begins to plot the revenge against lovers.

Complexity and richness of the original novel is here replaced with cheap melodrama and black-and-white characterisation that has little to do with Hawthorne's text. Hester becomes ultra-radical feminist, Dimmersdale is noble idealist, while cuckolded Mr. Prynne turns into sadistic killer that could fit better into horror movies. 1990s "politically correct" makeover wasn't enough for filmmakers so they made few more additions, including skinny-dipping, female masturbation, witch hunts and deus ex machina ending in the form of spectacular Indian attack on evil white men. Even if people aren't familiar with the novel, all this looks false, mostly due to Demi Moore's tragic lack of ability to realistically portray character of Hester Prynne. Gary Oldman is somewhat better his efforts are vain, just great care about period details and spectacular reconstruction of 17th Century New England. The movie is simply too Hollywoodised version of history that never allows viewers to suspend their disbelief (and John Barry using Catholic-sounding motives in musical score set in Protestant town don't help either).

When confronted by press about movies' faithfulness to literary source, Demi Moore said that it didn't matter because not many people have read the book. If the filmmakers thought about this little more, the movie wouldn't suffer the same fate.