MISERY
A review in the public domain
by The Phantom
(baumgart@esquire.dpw.com)
A Stephen King novel is to literature what a Big Mac, a large fries, and a Coke are to fine cuisine. Both seem like good ideas when you're hungry, and both taste great -- at least to start. But after you're done, you might feel vaguely dissatisfied, and at the very least you'll have an awful lot of paper -- much of which is strewn with brand names -- to dispose of.
And yet, and yet. Sure, you know pretty much what's going to happen from the very first page. And sure, the characters are comfortable stereotypes, the settings are as familiar as the faithful golden arches themselves, and the language is post-modern campfire-ese. King even brings back characters and plot devices like Mickey D's brings back McRibs: they're never gone long enough for us to really miss them.
But still. Can't get enough of 'em, right? Neither can the Phantom, who's been a King phan since early on, and has yet to read a novel or short story that he didn't like -- at least a little. For the most part, though, he's liked them quite a lot, and he's always eager to flex his eye muscles (and his biceps, given the physical -- if not literary -- heft of King's recent efforts) on the latest from America's favorite horror writer.
An odd way to begin a review of MISERY, you might say. But the Phantom found as he left the theater that MISERY the film is a lot like one of King's novels. Although we never *should* be surprised by anything that happens, we are. And although James Caan gives a perfunctory performance as Paul Sheldon, we're able to overlook it. And finally, although we must, as the credits roll, admit to ourselves that MISERY really isn't much of a horror film, we must also admit that it was, nonetheless, expertly made, beautifully photographed, and very, very enjoyable.
More than anyone else, Rob Reiner seems to have the best idea of what a Stephen King novel *feels* like. When he turned King's short story, "The Body", into STAND BY ME, even non-King phans stood up and took notice. But those who *were* King phans, and who had suffered through countless bad adaptations of his novels, rejoiced. Here, finally, was some relief from films like CAT'S EYE, and MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE (especially MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE), CHRISTINE, GRAVEYARD SHIFT, and even to some extent THE SHINING (which, while it is a fine horror film in its own right, bears as much resemblance to a Stephen King novel as Stephen King bears to a competent film director) -- films which bore greater or lesser resemblance to the stories from which they were adapted, but which *felt* nothing at all like them. (Did the Phantom mention MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE?)
It's that feeling of familiarity, that feeling of settling down around a campfire to hear a ripping good yarn -- and one that you know will keep you awake until the wee hours of the night -- that is usually missing from the films made out of King's novels and short stories. Even THE SHINING, while technically excellent and quite scary enough, was, however, coldly impersonal and distant -- just the opposite of King's novel, which got you right inside the haunted Overlook and the mind of its demented caretaker.
But although horror may be neither Rob Reiner nor William Goldman's forte, spinning ripping good yarns most certainly is. The team who just three years ago brought us the lightweight but entertaining PRINCESS BRIDE have collaborated once again and produced the equally lightweight (at least from a horror standpoint) but equally entertaining MISERY. And when it comes down to it, after you strip away the blood and gore, the evil clowns and giant spiders, the rabid dogs and 1950's space aliens, a Stephen King novel sets out from the very first page to entertain us. And although it becomes apparent after only a half hour that Rob Reiner doesn't really want to scare us very much, it's clear from the very first frame that he wants to spin us a yarn -- he wants to keep us entertained.
In that, MISERY is a resounding success. As a horror film, and as an adaptation of one of King's best novels, it's somewhat of a mixed bag. The novel MISERY was entertaining, of course, and in many ways it was a comfortable and familiar King novel, just like the dozens that had preceded it (and presumably like the hundreds that would follow). But it was also a bit of a departure for King, for this novel had no band of outcast kids; no ghosts or aliens or evil forces ; no apocalyptic battle between the forces of good and evil; no cast of thousands. Instead, MISERY had just two main characters, locked for almost the entire novel in a battle of wits, a battle which only one could survive. MISERY is King's most claustrophobic novel, and one of the most difficult horror novels to read. The sense of impending violence, doom, and insanity is almost unbearable, and King puts us right in the room with his alter ego, the horror novelist Paul Sheldon. Sheldon, you see, makes the mistake of getting into a near-fatal car accident and then getting "rescued" by his "number one fan," Annie Wilkes, a woman who isn't quite sane and who doesn't always make a lot of sense. In other words, a woman who would find herself quite at home in a Hollywood production meeting.
Annie is also a great phan of Misery Chastain, the heroine of Sheldon's trashy romance novel series. Although she sets out at first to help Paul recuperate from his accident (though all the while preventing him from leaving or getting in touch with anyone in the outside world), she soon finishes reading his latest (and last) entry in the "Misery" series. And she discovers that Paul, in order to free himself from the creation that had threatened to prevent him from writing "serious" literature forever, had killed Misery off at the end of the novel, thus hoping to put the series to rest once and for all.
Unfortunately, the only thing Sheldon put to rest was any hope he might have had of leaving Annie's secluded house before the spring thaw. Upon finding that Paul killed her heroine -- her "perfect, perfect" heroine -- Annie flies into a rage and nearly kills Paul before deciding that instead of killing him he should redeem himself by writing a new "Misery" novel and returning his most perfect of heroines to its adoring public. The rest of the novel is a tense, claustrophobic battle between Paul and Annie, with enough violence sprinkled throughout to keep even the most bloodthirsty of King's phans satisfied.
But the emphasis of the novel, for all its descriptions of mangled legs and kitchen knives, is on Paul and his desperate attempt to escape from Annie. In the process, King gets us inside the minds of both characters, and as we begin to empathize with Paul, we begin to feel more and more like we, too, are trapped in the bedroom, helplessly awaiting Annie's next violent outburst. That's one of the things that makes MISERY so difficult to read, and one of the things that makes it a little different from King's other novels. Instead of shifting the action and point of view between a dozen or so major characters, King keeps the action, points of view, and story focused in that one bedroom, and forces us to go through everything with Paul -- whether we want to or not.
And that's really the problem with MISERY, the film. Although it is quite faithful to the novel, and although Kathy Bates seems as born to the role of Annie Wilkes as Anthony Perkins is to the role of Norman Bates, Reiner never gets us to feel that same degree of terror and claustrophobia; in fact, we don't even see things from Paul's point of view with any degree of consistency. Reiner opened MISERY up a little, but as a result it seems that we spend nearly as much time with the sheriff and his wife as we do with Paul and Annie. It's almost as if every time Reiner felt that the audience might be squirming a little *too* much in their seats, he deliberately pulled back and eased up on the tension. In both the novel and the film, Annie is portrayed as being quite insane, but Reiner makes her nearly as funny as she is scary; on more than a few occasions, we get to laugh at her expense. But it's laughter without a payoff, since we're laughing to escape from whatever tension might have been building. King never let us escape that way, but except for two or three specific scenes, Reiner does.
Another problem with MISERY is James Caan's performance. It might be a limitation of Goldman's script; it might be Reiner's direction; or it might be Caan's inability to make us feel what his character is feeling; but we, as the audience, never really begin to empathize with Paul. Oh sure, we all cringe when Annie threatens to hurt Paul, but that's more a visceral reaction than true empathy. What's missing from MISERY is exactly what made HENRY so good: a performance like the one that Michael Rooker gave, one that breaks down the barrier between character and audience. In HENRY, we felt for a brief while what being a sociopathic killer was like; but in MISERY, we rarely, if at all, feel what it must be like to be trapped in bed and held captive by a madwoman.
And yet, and yet. Remember that the Phantom said that MISERY really *felt* like a King novel? Well it does, although sadly that novel is not MISERY. But for all its problems, MISERY is, like a good King novel, completely captivating from beginning to end. It forgoes any chance of being a full-tilt horror film, but if it's seen neither as a strict adaptation of King's novel nor a serious horror film, MISERY works just fine. It works for the same reason that many of King's novels work: because it is out and out entertaining, regardless of whatever problems an audience might have with it.
Of course, MISERY isn't necessarily family entertainment, even though the Phantom doesn't believe that it has its heart set on horror. There are enough violent scenes to keep all but the most hard-core horror phan -- or phan of the novel -- satisfied. And when Reiner decides to let Ms. Bates loose, it is simply impossible to take your eyes off the screen or your nails out of your mouth. We're even willing to forgive the old "Oh no! The car's almost in the driveway" routines and a pretty fair SLC quotient. Reiner can be forgiven for this, since as the Phantom has said, he's new to the horror game, and it's really not his type of film. On the other hand, his direction is always crisp and the editing is first rate. It's a tribute to Reiner's skill that he can throw in tilted camera shots, shots of a full moon, thunder and lightning just before something bad happens, and a dozen other tried and true horror film cliches -- and make them all work (or at least keep us from realizing that they're cliches until after the credits roll). And there are moments when it's obvious that he's gotten right into the spirit of things; at least a half-dozen times throughout the film, it's as if Reiner has forgotten that he just set out to spin an entertaining yarn, rather than direct a full-tilt horror film. On those occasions, he gets the camera right up into Paul and Annie's (especially Annie's) faces, and he really lets Kathy Bates go to town. And for just a while we are treated to some truly scary scenes. But inevitably the scenes end all too quickly, and usually without much of a payoff, and we're back to MISERY: THE CAMPFIRE STORY rather than MISERY: THE HORROR FILM.
So, phans, when it comes down to the final analysis, MISERY is quite good, and it stands as one of the better adaptations of one of King's novels (which isn't, of course, saying much), though it's really not too much of a horror film itself. But if you don't go into it expecting the atmosphere that King labored so hard to create or the tension and claustrophobia that pervaded his novel, the Phantom thinks you'll find it well worth seeing. In fact, it's worth seeing if for no reason other than to see Kathy Bates' truly lunatic performance. Lunatic performances are all too rare these days, and the Phantom thinks that Bates' Annie Wilkes makes Chucky look like Charlie McCarthy in comparison. And that should be reason enough for a horror phan to check out MISERY before it leaves the theaters and heads for a very un-rightful resting place between copies of LIFEFORCE and MY BLOODY VALENTINE on the horror shelves of Blockbusters nationwide. It may not be a great horror film, but it deserves *much* better company than that.
: The Phantom : baumgart@esquire.dpw.com : {cmcl2,uunet}!esquire!baumgart
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