Misery (1990)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Misery (1990) – R. Reiner

Actually, director Rob Reiner does a much better Hitchcock impression than I would have expected (and yes, this is my first viewing of this Stephen King adaptation). You can actually see where he borrowed some of Hitch’s montage style to increase the suspense (i.e., shot of James Caan looking, shot of bobby pin on the floor, shot of Caan, shot of door lock; then when he is out of the locked room, shot of Kathy Bates’ car returning, etc.). But let me back up. The plot involves famous author (and King surrogate) Paul Sheldon having a car accident during a blizzard and being rescued by psycho “Number One Fan” Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates, who won the Oscar for this role). She pretends that the phone line is out and that she has to nurse him back to health herself (she is a nurse by training after all) – but obviously he is her prisoner and she wants him to write a new book about her favourite character from his works. Things get fairly gruesome when he rebels but, in fact, the film often veers into black comedy (again not unlike Hitchcock) perhaps to release all the built up tension from Wilkes’ behaviour. Folksy Richard Farnsworth as the persistent local sheriff is a nice touch. I suppose the only thing I might quibble with is the over-the-top finale (not the coda); I tried to imagine how Hitch would have handled the conclusion differently (without so much overt violence) but I could not. Perhaps, as in Psycho, he would have kept these violent moments for their shock value. Kudos to William Goldman for his screenplay which kept the simple premise going far longer than I thought he could.