Review of Misery (1990) by James R — 01 May 2011

Paul Sheldon (James Caan) is a writer, famous for the romance series of books titled 'Misery'. He's finished his latest book, where he kills off Misery, as he wants to move onto writing different stories. He's driving through a snowstorm, when he crashes his car. He's rescued and taken back to the home of Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates), a former nurse and number one fan of Paul, to rest whilst she tends to his wounds, including his broken legs. Unfortunatley, Annie reads the book and is severely pissed off with the fact that Misery dies, which isn't good for Paul as nobody knows Paul is in Annies care (as her home's basically in the middle of nowhere).

This film is really tense, there were moments where I was genuinly worrying what would happen to Paul. This film manages to keep the suspense going throughout the entire film and keeps your attention focused on the film. One of the best scenes is when Paul is looking through the memories book. I won't spoil the book's content, but it's a brilliant scene nonetheless. One of the most creepiest scenes in the film, i'll merely call it the "Hobbling" scene. If you've seen the film, you should get which scene it is.

It's really the two leads who sell this movie. James Caan's determination to escape and his fear and pain really come out in full force and are nothing less than utterly believable. But without a doubt, Kathy Bates does the best performance within the entire film. She plays all the sides of Annie Wilkes to perfection, the number one fan side manages to be quite sweet with a hint of creepiness managing it's way in there, and when she plays the psychotic side of Annie, it's one of the creepiest portrayals you will have seen in film, much more scary than Ghostface or Jason Voorhees (especially the 2009 portrayal). It's no wonder that she won 3 best actress awards for her portrayal here.

I have only seen 5 films based on Stephen Kings works: The Shawshank Redemption, The Mist, 1408, Misery and Stand By Me. If I put these films in order of best to worst, Misery would be third, in between Stand By Me and The Mist (First would be Shawshank). I may have put it in third, but whatever other King film adaptations there are, they will have to be pretty damn special to top this one alone.

Definately one of the best Stephen King movies, and one of the best thrillers to ever be released. A must see.