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Poster (c) MGM
Adaptations of Stephen King books are notorious for being subpar to the books, and Misery is one of them. The book is excellent, King’s best next to The Shining, and has never ending terror. The movie version isn’t as good.
James Caan is a popular romance novelist, he writes the Misery books, about Misery Chastain, a rich 19th young woman. Millions of fans love her, including Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates, in an Oscar-winning role), who finds Paul Sheldon and brings him to her house after a car crash. At first, she’s treating him nicely, but after she reads his first draft of a new book that she doesn’t like, and she finds out that in his latest Misery book that Misery dies, Annie gets angry. When Annie gets angry, back away.
She makes Paul burn the book she doesn’t like, and then Annie keeps Paul captive to write a book: Misery’s Return. Since Paul’s bedridden with no use for his legs, he can’t leave, and if he tries to, Annie will do things to him. One is with a mallet.
If you haven’t read the book, then most of this review will be worthless, since whenever I see a movie based on a book I have read, my review will be a comparison. Now that that’s out of the way, let me go on. The book had nonstop thrills, while in this movie adaptation the thrills varied. Obviously, I knew what was going to happen, but what really made this a good film was the acting.
Kathy Bates well deserved her best actress Oscar for this demanding role. Not many people COULD play Annie Wilkes, but Bates is the only person who I could imagine for this role. I was looking forward to seeing her do another great acting job, since I had just seen her in About Schmidt. Caan was also very good, but it’s obvious why he didn’t win an Oscar. It’s really a two-person show, except Richard Farnsworth and Lauren Bacall come in as a police chief and Caan’s agent, respectively.
To be forewarned is to be forearmed, and there is one brutal scene with a sledgehammer, but that’s all I’ll say. Much of the violence from the book is taken out, which makes it easier to read. To sum it up, Misery’s thrills come and go, but there’s some great acting here.
Rated R for a scene of violence.
Review Date: May 17, 2003