In 1947, Humbert Humbert (Jeremy Irons), a middle-aged European professor of French literature, travels to the United States to take a teaching position in New Hampshire. He rents a room in the home of widow Charlotte Haze (Melanie Griffith), largely because he is romantically attracted to her adolescent daughter Dolores (Dominique Swain), also called "Lo", who he sees while touring the house. Obsessed from boyhood with girls of approximately her age (whom he calls "Lolita (term)#Nymphets"), Humbert is immediately smitten with Lo and gets married to Charlotte only just to be near her daughter.