Review: Misery

James Caan stars as schlock novelist Paul Sheldon who has a car crash out in the snow and slippery ice. He awakens in the care of nurse Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates), who claims to be Sheldon’s ‘Number 1 fan’. It’s not long, though, before Paul realises that Annie has several screws loose, and she might not be helping him so much as imprisoning him. Meanwhile, Paul’s publisher (Lauren Bacall) gets worried and contacts the local sheriff (Richard Farnsworth). Frances Sternhagen plays Farnsworth’s wife, and J.T. Walsh plays a local patrolman investigating the crash scene once Paul’s car is recovered.

This Rob Reiner (“When Harry Met Sally...”, “A Few Good Men”) directed, William Goldman (“Butch Cassidy and the the Sundance Kid”, “All the President’s Men”, “The Princess Bride”) scripted adaptation of the Stephen King (“Cujo”, “Carrie”, “Stand By Me”) psycho-thriller is not the most original or profound motion picture you’ll ever see. It is however, one of the very best examples of its chosen field of study. There are a few clichéd moments here and there (especially with one character basically playing the Scatman Crothers role from “The Shining”), but if you don’t find this film gripping and thoroughly entertaining, I seriously have to question whether you even know what entertainment is.

James Caan is perfectly fine as the trapped, injured writer (Caan doesn’t seem perhaps to be the ‘intellectual’ type, but his novels are schlock), even if I would’ve chosen someone a little more ingratiating (Caan, in the film and otherwise, seems a bit prickly at times) to the audience, like a Richard Dreyfuss, but perhaps Dreyfuss would’ve just reminded one of the permanently injured guy he played in “Whose Life is it Anyway?”. However, it’s Oscar-winner Kathy Bates you’ll remember here. Her Annie Wilkes is one of the greatest female performances in the history of cinema, perhaps one of the best regardless of gender. Scary, funny, personable, psychotic, folksy, delusional- she plays the whole damn gamut and makes it 100% believable. She isn’t a one-dimensional nutjob, this is a very, very sad and disturbed woman with many layers. However, the shot of her watching daytime TV, eating, and drinking coke from the bottle just about says it all about that character in just that one shot. Bates really is a remarkable actress, when one looks at her body of work.

Richard Farnsworth and Frances Sternhagen are a lot of fun as the countrified sheriff (a cliché, perhaps) and his acerbic wife, and the late J.T. Walsh has an amusing cameo as the least reassuring police officer you’re ever likely to come across. This guy has no PR skills whatsoever. Nice to see screen legend Lauren Bacall too, in a brief but enjoyable cameo role.

Reiner does a great job here, but I especially like the use of close-ups that Reiner and his cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld (“Blood Simple”, “When Harry Met Sally...”) adopt throughout the film. It makes things even more claustrophobic and inescapable, but also wonderfully captures the many faces of the remarkable Kathy Bates.

It’s high-concept, formulaic stuff, but when it’s done well, it’s done well. This is terrific, tense genre filmmaking, and you get the sense that this story might be like a personal nightmare for King, which adds to the fun. It’s bad enough that Caan has been left helpless in the evil clutches of his ‘Number 1 fan’, she’s also a fan of the books that he’s come to resent as having taken over his career. Priceless stuff. By the way, if you don’t flinch during the hobbling scene, you aren’t human. I’m a paraplegic and even I could really feel the pain just watching the scene. Easily one of the best films from a Stephen King story, and certainly one of the most accessible.

Rating: A