SPOILER
ALERT
So, this review marks a break from
reviewing Hollywood and modern classics, as I’m reviewing a more, arguably,
obscure film. Misery is a movie
adaptation of Stephen King’s novel ‘Misery,’ which I’ve read and I’ve heard
that the film is supposed to be great, so I thought I would give it a watch and
compare the two. This means of course
that I shall be discussing both the book and the film in the review.
What’s it about? Paul
Sheldon (James Caan) is a best-selling novelist. He’s written a string of novels whom feature
Misery Chastain as their protagonist and they’ve made him rich and famous. However, in his latest Misery novel, he kills
off Misery, so that he can leave the series behind him and move onto other
works. Upon driving to his literary
agent to give her his manuscript for his new novel, he crashes his car. However, Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates) pulls
Paul Sheldon from the wreckage and cares for him in her farm. Annie Wilkes is an ex-nurse and takes care of
Paul, but she is also Paul’s biggest fan, essentially a fangirl from hell, and
when she finds out that he has murdered Misery Chastain, whom she adores, she
is not happy about it.
She then keeps Paul prisoner until he writes a new novel, where he
brings Misery Chastain back from the dead.
The Good: Kathy Bates
and James Caan were great as Annie Wilkes and Paul Sheldon respectively. I felt that Kathy Bates really captured Annie
Wilkes’ sociopathic tendencies as they appeared within the novel. One minute Annie Wilkes is a sweet, young,
over-excitable, perhaps a little overzealous fangirl and the next she is a
psychotic serial killer. Kathy Bates
captured this essence perfectly, balancing perfectly the line between naïve and
sweet and hateful and rage-filled. James
Cann was just as good as Paul Sheldon.
Considering that the only other thing I’ve seen him in is the Godfather
as Santino Corleone, it was really interesting seeing him as an older, more
mature and more even-tempered of a character.
He played the part of Paul Sheldon well, being absolutely terrified of
Annie but also having the courage to fight against her.
The Bad: I felt that what the film
was really missing was some type of internal monologue from Paul Sheldon. From what I remember of the book, it is told
from Paul’s perspective as a first-person narrator. It isn’t stream of consciousness as such, but
it definitely has snippets of his thoughts and feelings. I felt that the film could have really
benefited from Paul narrating it and also having more POV shots to truly
capture his sense of pain and isolation.
I also didn’t like how the film toned down the violence that is present
in the book. Of course, you can argue
that a lot of violence doesn’t necessarily make a film good, but I felt that
the film could have benefited from being more faithful to the text in this
regard.
Within the novel, there are three notable examples of violence. Firstly, Annie cuts off Paul’s foot after he escapes from his room and tries to escape from the house, whereas in the film she just breaks it. In the novel, Annie also cuts off one of Paul’s thumbs after he complains about the missing keys on the typewriter, which is completely omitted from the film. Lastly, when a statetrooper comes looking for Paul whom then tries to get his attention, Annie kills the trooper by running him over with a lawnmower, whereas in the film she simply just shoots him.
Whilst, I argue that the lawnmower death scene was gratuitous within the book and I’m glad it was replaced, I felt that the film should have kept the other two violent scenes. When I read these scenes in the book, they really helped to emphasise just how unstable Annie’s state of mind was, which I didn’t think that the film conveyed as well. Lastly, I also didn’t like the scenes focusing on the police searching for Paul. Within both the film and the book, these scenes are present and are kept to a minimum, which means that they don’t distract that much. However, they did still take away from the highly insulated experience of watching Paul and Annie interact with each other.
Within the novel, there are three notable examples of violence. Firstly, Annie cuts off Paul’s foot after he escapes from his room and tries to escape from the house, whereas in the film she just breaks it. In the novel, Annie also cuts off one of Paul’s thumbs after he complains about the missing keys on the typewriter, which is completely omitted from the film. Lastly, when a statetrooper comes looking for Paul whom then tries to get his attention, Annie kills the trooper by running him over with a lawnmower, whereas in the film she simply just shoots him.
Whilst, I argue that the lawnmower death scene was gratuitous within the book and I’m glad it was replaced, I felt that the film should have kept the other two violent scenes. When I read these scenes in the book, they really helped to emphasise just how unstable Annie’s state of mind was, which I didn’t think that the film conveyed as well. Lastly, I also didn’t like the scenes focusing on the police searching for Paul. Within both the film and the book, these scenes are present and are kept to a minimum, which means that they don’t distract that much. However, they did still take away from the highly insulated experience of watching Paul and Annie interact with each other.
The Ugly: Even if
Paul’s foot was broken, rather than cut off, it was still quite a horrific and
shocking scene to watch.
Rating: Good
All in all this was a good film with
some standout performances, but it needed an interior monologue and a little
more violence. That, notwithstanding, I
would argue that Annie Wilkes makes a better villain than a coven of vampires
or Pennywise the Clown, purely for the fact that I’m sure that somewhere out
there, psychotic fangirls do exist.
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