Misery

'Cockadoodie! You poop!'

This is potentially one of my favourite lines from a film and it sets the tone for this week's film review. Misery follows the story of Paul Sheldon, the famed author of the 'Misery' series, who is taken hostage by an obsessive fan, Cathy Wilkes. The film, directed by Rob Reiner, is an intensely thrilling and darkly fantastical dissection of obsessive fan culture - who could expect any less from Stephen King's storytelling?

After finishing the manuscript for the final instalment of his beloved 'Misery' series, Paul Sheldon crashes his car during a blizzard in rural Colorado. As he lies unconscious, we see his body being pulled from the wreckage by a mysterious saviour. When he wakes, Paul finds himself in a quaint home with two broken legs and a dislocated shoulder. Here we are properly introduced to his 'heroine', Annie Wilkes, played by the incomparable Cathy Bates. Annie enthusiastically confesses that she is Sheldon's 'number one fan' and commits herself to nursing him back to health until the storm passes. Paul, battered and bruised, gladly accepts her help, readily swallowing the orange painkillers she supplies. Yet from the outset, unease underscores the confines of the room: as Paul gapes at his mangled legs, Annie gleefully describes the process of rearranging the broken bones. Yikes.

So far, so good (ish). Despite her juvenile fan-girling, Annie takes pride in caring for Paul, going so far as to shave him with an inticingly sharp blade. Misery teases us with the inevitable, whilst coddling it in the cosy domesticity of Annie's home. Annie coyly asks Paul whether she may read the final manuscript, and Paul happily agrees. However, Annie interprets Paul's simple favour as a confirmation of their intimate bond and her true self begins to seep out, bit by bit. Later, she erupts in fury over the profanity in Sheldon's book. Like a woman possessed, she shakes violently and spills soup across Paul's bed before profusely apologising and retreating into a childlike anxiety. Bates' performance is every bit Oscar-worthy, nailing the volatile cocktail of Annie's incessant neediness, anxious self-consciousness, artificial maternal warmth and a simmering, demonic rage that promises to escalate to violence. Her infatuation with Paul is clear, and, as the sky clears and the roads open, she begins to weave a string of lies to keep him in her clutches.

Next, we meet the local sheriff, Buster (Richard Farnsworth) and his wife, Virginia (Frances Sterhagen), who provide Misery with some welcome comedic relief. When Paul's literary agent, Marcia, calls to report his disappearance, Buster assures her that he will put it through their system. When he hangs up, he smacks a yellow Post-it note up on a cluttered notice board - fabulous. Given his seemingly relaxed attitude towards law and order, our hopes are not high for Paul. But looks can be deceiving and Buster (not a character in the original text) gradually becomes someone we root for. As the snow thaws and Sheldon's car is discovered, regional authorities conclude that he must have pulled himself from the wreckage and died of exposure. Buster, however, is not convinced: he suspects that someone must have pulled Paul from the wreckage... and so the investigation begins.

Meanwhile, Paul becomes suspicious of Annie's lies, but is still bedbound and dependent on her care. Annie's behaviour becomes increasingly obsessive as she romanticises their relationship and reveals deeper signs of instability. One night, Annie storms into Paul's room after discovering he has killed off the lead character in his book. The true horror of Paul's situation finally sets in when she calmly reveals that no help is coming. She forces Paul to burn the manuscript and begin writing 'Misery' again, transforming his supposed sanctuary into a terrifying writers' retreat.

Paul takes matters into his own hands, escaping his locked room while Annie is out and wheeling himself through the house. The knives in her kitchen glint temptingly at him, but Paul stashes away some of the orange painkillers instead. In a brilliantly tense scene, Annie's car rumbles in the distance and Paul desperately scrambles back to his room in time. James Caan convincingly conveys Paul's agony as he hauls himself back into his chair, his panic mounting as Annie rapidly approaches the house. The dramatic scoring, combined with Bates' frenetic performance, convinces us that this middle-aged woman, dressed in a floral blouse, is a figure of monstrous potential.

Things begin to ramp up a notch when Paul appeals to Annie's deluded romantic fantasy, inviting her to a candlelit dinner to commemorate finishing the new (Annie-approved) manuscript. Annie eagerly dresses for the meal like a 1950s housewife, pruned and preened and giggling at Paul's every word. When she goes to grab some candles, Paul pours his stash of painkillers into her wine. The plan is foiled, excruciatingly, when Annie knocks the glass over. Now desperate, Paul sneaks out of his room again and discovers a disturbing scrapbook revealing Annie's murderous history: pages upon pages of newspaper clippings detail the murder of several children and nurses. I must admit, the swirly pink annotations of "another baby" did feel rather like a cliché plot device. Paul steals a knife from the kitchen, accepting that violence will be an unavoidable conclusion, and stuffs it under his mattress.

Things finally reach a breaking point (sorry, I had to) when Paul wakes up the next morning tied to his bed. Annie, having discovered his escape attempt, brutally shatters his ankles with a mallet. It is an infamous scene and Bates delivers the chilling line, 'God, I love you' with a perfectly sadistic sincerity.

Eventually, Buster deduces that Annie must be the kidnapper from a few old newspaper records and Annie quoting 'Misery' during her trial. Considering Buster is not a character in the original book, this deduction appears more as a clunky plot device rather than a genius realisation. In a gripping sequence, Buster searches Annie's home. As he moves through the house, we are teased with Annie's murderous potential as she lingers predatorially behind him. Buster finally discovers Paul imprisoned in the basement, but hope is violently extinguished when Annie blows Buster's chest open with a rifle. Now Annie's obsession descends into religious psychosis: convinced that the only way for her and Paul to live together peacefully is through joint suicide, she ceremoniously lays out a tray with a cigarette, champagne, two glasses and a gun...

In a dramatic final confrontation, Paul burns the manuscript and, as Annie desperately tries to save it, he clatters her over the head with his typewriter - the very object she used to imprison him. As the two tussle on the ground, Paul stuffs the burnt remnants of the book into her mouth, choking her with her own obsession. Annie resists with an unrelenting, animalistic fury; doused in her own blood, she reaches her terrifying final form. There is a tad too much rolling around on the floor in the scene for my liking, but Annie is finally killed with an iron doorstop. Whilst effective, I couldn't help but feel that Annie's death deserved something far more gruesome, something befitting of her evil. The thump in the face with the doorstop felt slightly incongruous considering the myriad of potential murder weapons flashed at us across the story. What of the gasoline that is used repeatedly, the rifle, or the knife?

The film concludes eighteen months later. Paul, now using a walking stick, meets with Marcia, who asks whether he might write a memoir of his time with Annie. Paul waves her off, dismissing the idea. Suddenly, a figment of Annie, dressed as a waitress, looms into shot. No fear, it is not her, just another waitress who proudly declares, 'I'm your number one fan.' Even in death, Annie continues to haunt Paul, achieving a posthumous legacy that would have certainly pleased her.

Oscar-winning performances, relentless peril, nerve-shredding escape attempts, bursts of shocking violence and even the occasional laugh, Misery remains an easy favourite (despite the few clunky plot devices). Now, onto the next....

7.5/10

Yours sincerely,

The Film Buff