Roland Joffe's film of The Scarlet Letter takes major liberties with Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic novel, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. A faithful adaptation of a book that most people remember as one of the drearier hurdles of freshman English would be unlikely to pack ‘em in at the box office, Demi Moore nude scene or no. And it's not unimaginable that the story of a woman who is ostracized by the small-minded religious community in which she lives could have been spun with relevance to modern audiences. But in the end, you just have to scratch your head and wonder what Joffe and scripter Douglas Day Stewart were thinking. It's a mess that serves no one, least of all students hoping to get out of having to read the book for class.