Misery (1990)

Misery is a 1990 thriller directed by Rob Reiner and starring James Caan and Kathy Bates.

My favourite moment in Misery is a very small one, and a great illustration of why I love this film so much – the performances, in particular, James Caan as famous hack writer Paul Sheldon. It’s the part where crazy Annie Wilkes’ pet pig comes barrelling into the room and sticks its snout into his face. He’s incapacitated and helpless while an animal snorts obnoxiously into his face.

I love the look he gives the pig – it is pure hatred and disgust. To make matters worse, and the scene all the more uncomfortably hilarious, is that she has named it after the lead character in his series of pulp romance novels.  In a single look and with absolutely no dialogue, Caan conveys everything you need to know about his entire predicament in the film. He’s a famous writer, rescued from a car wreck by a batshit crazy fan who then imprisons him in her house while she slowly descends into complete and utter madness. Stephen King’s imagination for creating utter horror in simple situations is unmatched by any thriller writer, and screenwriter William Goldman did a fantastic job of taking a great novel and turning it into an equally great horror film (an unfortunately rare thing when it comes to film adaptations of King’s work).

The performances of the two leads are what set Misery apart from other thrillers. Kathy Bates is truly frightening as the demented psychopath Annie Wilkes. She could have played it as an over-the-top villain, but she goes for something far more effective. The veneer is the caring, motherly type, a lonely woman who finds solace in romance novels, but as it begins to crack about half an hour into the film you start to see glimpses of what lurks beneath.

Bates, and director Rob Reiner, do a fantastic job of dishing out the crazy in small chunks, rather than all at once, and the film is immeasurably better for it. Everyone remembers the ‘hobbling’ scene, and while that is a great scene, I prefer the first hint at Annie’s true nature. It’s where she’s feeding him tomato soup, and telling him what she thinks of his new novel (he’s got a first draft of his first non-romance novel in a long time, his effort to become a ‘serious novelist’). Predictably, she hates it because it’s not what she wanted – it’s not her beloved Misery Chastain. As she’s giving him her thoughts on it and he begins to defend it, she loses it, and begins ranting at him angrily, spilling soup all over him. What I love about the scene is how effortlessly Kathy Bates switches Annie from a violent psycho back to her façade. She suddenly becomes apologetic and then ends the conversation with her eyes kind of glazing over as she says ‘I love you, Paul’. She is so fantastically insane. And again, I love James Caan at the end of the scene, after she’s left the room. Again, he does it with a simple look – he’s realised he’s in deep shit. You can see the clock begin to tick in his head.

I love the way Reiner draws out the tension in other ways too. Like with the Sheriff traipsing through the snow and coming within inches of finding Caan’s car buried under a drift. As we see the Sheriff, Buster, walking back to his car, the camera pulls back slightly and we see one wheel protruding from the snow. It’s these simple shots that Reiner does so well. It has you cursing the screen and snapping your fingers and saying ‘damn it, so close’. 

There’s also the tension as Paul Sheldon waits for the inevitable – Annie Wilkes has just purchased his latest Misery novel. He knows (as we do) that Annie’s beloved Misery Chastain dies at the end. Again, Reiner dishes out the tension beautifully. We have several scenes of Annie bouncing into the room, excitedly telling Paul where she’s up to, and that she's loving every minute of the book, not wanting it to end. Then we see the anxiety in Paul as he waits for her to finish and wonders what the hell he’s in for when she does.

And there’s another great moment after she’s finished and found out about Misery's death. First she tells him he needs to burn his ‘serious’ manuscript. Obviously he objects, and tries to talk his way out of it. So she walks around the bed absently squirting lighter fluid on him. Again, it’s the look on Caan’s face. He's both heartbroken and consumed with a helpless kind of rage.

And as great as the ‘hobbling’ scene is, I also prefer another smaller moment that is, for me, far more horrific. It’s where Annie is in a severely depressed state. She’s absently looking out the window into a downpour, and telling him how the rain makes her depressed and how scared she is of ‘losing him’. But then she pulls a gun from the pocket of her cardigan and as the fear flashes in Caan’s eyes yet again she almost casually remarks that she ‘might put bullets’ in it. I love that it’s not an overt act of violence, it’s the implied threat is so goddamn terrifying. And the fact she makes the threat after saying she doesn’t want to lose him again shows how fast and loose Annie is playing with her grip on reality. Her downward slide into murderous insanity is nearly at an end.

I also love the deeper stuff in Misery too. I’ve heard that the book is actually used in some Psychology courses; Annie Wilkes is such a great example of a delusional personality. It’s better illustrated in the book, but there’s a scene in the film where, after Annie has forced Paul to bring Misery back to life by writing a new book Misery’s Return, where he starts to explain to her the type of writing paper he likes, saying (in an effort to placate her madness) that he just wants her to be a part of the writing process. I love it that she dismisses this entirely. She doesn’t give a shit about the process, because to her, Misery Chastain is a real person. She doesn’t want to know about how the writer created the character or brought her to life, because that would ruin the delusional fantasy she’s created in her head.

As great as everything about this film is, it’s the two main actors that make it truly shine, and hold up so well after all these years. Bates and Caan give truly memorable performances, and I love the cathartic moment when Paul finally gets his revenge. It’s a brutal bit of violence, but I can’t help but laugh at it – under any normal circumstances the mere thought of smashing a lead doorstop over a woman’s head and then shoving the charred remains of Misery's Return down her throat would never even cross Paul Sheldon’s mind. But given what she’s put him through, it’s absolutely understandable.

Misery is a fantastic film and one I revisit whenever I’m writing, if only just to remind myself that there are worse things than a case of writer’s block.