Misery

“To Misery” -Paul Sheldon I am not the biggest reader of fiction, now I’ve read my fair share of the classics but I have yet to touch any of Mr. King’s books but from the sheer amount of movies based off his works and going off the ones i’ve seen I can’t say i’m not impressed. The adaptation of his I see the most similarities to, and maybe this is just recency bias, is The Money, primarily for the reason that both adaptations I believe pretty clearly wear their message on their sleeve. Even if you somehow weren’t aware this came from the most prolific writers of the last century you’d probably pick up that this movie represents every creative who’s found success but for all the wrong reasons and the fear that comes with abandoning the rare opportunities for stability in such a field. Annie Wilkes, played wonderfully by Kathy Bates, embodies the completely out of touch fan side that while being the ones that keep food on the table for people like Paul, are also the ones holding you from self actualization at times. Annie says it herself, she feeds him so feels entitled to have say in the creative process. She even keeps him drugged, tying into King’s own battles with substance abuse. And yeah I know i’m not exactly doing any deep literary analysis here, the in universe book series is called Misery so every mention of it is very on the nose, which is something I like simply because I like how it reinforces the idea of his greatest success being so soulless, hence the quote I picked. Story aside, I think it’s important to note that this next to bloodless movie still has as much if not more tension in it than any gorefest i’ve ever seen. From King’s writing alone the premise requires very little huge displays of threat given the shape Paul is shown to be in. Instead of extravagant chase scenes this movie has doubled the tension by just showing someone in such a poor condition trying to explore a house with some level of grace and in a relatively timely manner. And all this would mean nothing if not for Bates’ portrayal of Annie because while plenty of horror movies have antagonists who are constantly in a state of fear inducing behavior Bates does a good job of making Annie likable which makes it unclear when her demeanor will switch to anger. The best example of this being when Paul asks for paper and you can’t quite tell if she’s directing her emotions inward or outward until her anger finally erupts out of her. That uncertainty keeps the audience on edge and to tie that into the movie’s central theme, really helps deliver this idea of your audience being unpredictable at times, you never quite know if they’ll resonate with what you’ve done despite it still being the same person behind the work. And while i’ll admit, i’m a simple person who likes going to the movies to see things outside of the realm of possibility I cannot deny that even if this is outside of my primary tastes that this is a wonderfully written, acted and directed movie, and I feel the need to commend them when something like this shines through and has me put aside my usual preferences for an hour or two. If there was anyone I'd recommend this to, it would be those drawn to suspense that don’t watch movies in the genre for shock factor or iconography. Which I know sounds like a brain dead take, “Imagine watching a movie for its story” but I do think given how one note horror as a genre is treated I think it’s important to highlight movies such as this, I mean after all this movie has gone on to be gilded by the Academy and you might see why with a watch for yourself. Rating: 9/10