This is the paragraph where I’m supposed to write some cliché like, “The Oscar race has finally begun” or “It’s time to start thinking about Oscars!”

These whorish quotes have been smeared all over advertisements for “The Human Stain,” causing many to avoid the film at all costs. There’s no way this film lives up to that hype, but longtime director Robert Benton’s new film turns out to be an entertaining piece of drama and definitely is worth a look.

The film takes place in 1998, just as the country was dealing with the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal (You didn’t think we could get through a film titled “The Human Stain” without bringing it up, did you?). The film brings up the scandal repeatedly, as if to remind us of the constant punishment of sexuality that seems to plague Western society.

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Anthony Hopkins plays Coleman Silk, a college professor who is forced to resign because of supposedly racist comments he made during one of his lectures. He refers to two of his students who never show up to class as “spooks.” He claims the term meant ghosts, but the two students are black and they didn’t like it. So the professor is gone, sold out by the school board he helped appoint.

Just when things couldn’t get much worse for Silk, his wife collapses and dies after hearing the news. Now he’s left with no job and no wife, which leads him into the home of Nathan Zuckerman (Gary Sinise), an author who Silk befriends and attempts to convince to turn his story into a book.

Later, Silk begins a relationship with Faunia, a local janitor played by Nicole Kidman (that’s right, Kidman, the janitor). Faunia, it turns out, has just as many problems as Silk — two children who burned to death in a fire and a crazy ex-husband (Ed Harris) who blames her and swears revenge.

What makes this somewhat conventional drama compelling is the multiple reads it offers the viewer. On the outside, it seems the ordinary tale of a man attempting to regain some of the loves that he has lost, while helping others regain these loves in the process.

But there’s an exciting secret about Coleman that opens another read about race relations in American society. While I desperately want to discuss just what this secret means, I think it’s best not to reveal it and let the viewer go into the film with an (un)biased eye.

Instead, we’ll focus on the relationship that Coleman carries with Nathan, and the definite homoeroticism that lies buried inside both characters. It may sound reaching, but watch what happens when Coleman attempts to merge his homoerotic relationship with his very heterosexual relationship with Faunia. There’s a verbal explosion from Faunia when she and Nathan are introduced, and she bolts out of the room.

As much as Faunia’s character is there to free Coleman from his emotional prison, she’s almost as damaging as the school board. Virtually all of the signs leading us to this homoerotic interpretation vanish after this confrontation, leading us to believe that Coleman will remain a sexual prisoner as long as Faunia is in the picture.

I’m sure many who see this film might laugh it off, but Benton’s work should be praised for its ability to challenge us mentally. After the film’s somewhat predictable ending, we’re left with questions that we must answer ourselves — the same questions that Zuckerman must answer while writing Coleman’s life story.

Since “The Matrix: Revolutions” is sure to monopolize DeKalb’s multiplex for quite some time, there’s a good chance “The Human Stain” never will make it into town. But if you get a chance to get out of town, be sure to check this one out. It might surprise you, even if the onslaught of Oscar hype just wasn’t warranted.