Misery (Review)

There are nearly as many Stephen King movie adaptations as there are Stephen King novels and short stories. This despite the success rate of the adaptations being very low. Misery is one of the very good ones.

Paul Sheldon (James Caan) is a renowned author of popular fiction. His recurring female heroine Misery Chastaine, is revered the world over and each subsequent novel in which she appears eagerly anticipated.

In the eyes of many Paul can do no wrong. Then, perhaps tired of being known for one character only, he murders Misery.

As the film opens the ‘death’ of Misery is not public knowledge, with Paul only having typed the manuscript in his remote mountain writing retreat, not having even submitted it to his editors or publishers for perusal.

It is on the way to do just this when his car runs off the slippery mountain roads, leaving Paul critically injured and unconscious, especially vulnerable given the freezing conditions.

But as fate would have it Paul’s wrecked car and mangled body is discovered. By a reclusive local nurse named Annie Wilkes who hauls Paul to safety and painstakingly nurses him back to health in her mountain home, leaving his shattered legs to heal over time.

As it turns out Paul would have been better off dead. Women…

This won’t end well…

The rest of the film plays out like an unfortunate marriage in Fast Forward, Annie begins all friendly like, doting, accommodating and eager to please. Paul lays around the house for weeks on end. Annie eventually shows signs of frustration and the capacity for temper tantrums. She is clingy, jealous and menacing, and eventually it is evident that this bone rattlingly psycho woman is capable of great violence.

See? Typical marriage.

In fact in certain scenes Annie runs the entire gamut of emotions and attitudes listed in the former paragraph in minutes, especially once she learns of Misery’s typewriter induced demise.

History shows that Kathy Bates performance as Annie garnered her an Academy Award, but while he spends 90% of the film in a bed James Caan is hardly sleeping on the job either. His gradual awakening to the gravity of his situation followed by the need to somehow extricate himself from his predicament is compelling stuff. But we can’t argue that as a positively nutso Wilkes it is Bates who is given greater license to take her character to extremes, never more chillingly than in the now famous ‘hobbling’ scene that makes me cringe even when I just think about it. The only time Kathy Bates was ever scarier was when she stripped off and jumped in the spa nekkid with Jack Nicholson.

Final Rating – 8 / 10. Misery moves along quickly and despite the frankly limited opportunities necessitated by a crippled lead actor it never gets boring or corny. It is not a movie that you could watch frequently, but one viewing every few years works a treat and the two leads make for a rewarding couple of hours.

About OGR

While I try to throw a joke or two into proceedings when I can all of the opinions presented in my reviews are genuine. I don't expect that all will agree with my thoughts at all times nor would it be any fun if you did, so don't be shy in telling me where you think I went wrong... and hopefully if you think I got it right for once. Don't be shy, half the fun is in the conversation after the movie.
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