Review of The Shining (1980) by Anna B — 04 Jun 2014

Jack Nicholson's psychotic performance is downright frightening as Jack Torrance, caretaker of the Overlook Hotel. The director, Stanley Kubrick, is masterful in creating an eerie, suspense-inducing atmosphere.

However, he did not do justice to its source material, NOT AT ALL. In Stephen King's novel, Jack is portrayed as a loving family man, but struggles with his addiction to alcohol, (which isn't mentioned that much in the film; very sparsely!), and it is a major internal and external conflict that the character deals with frequently in the novel.

This is his ultimate weakness and it later leads to his descent into insanity due to the hotel enticing him with it in the lounge room. Jack genuinely loves and cares about his son and it is shown often throughout the novel, even when he has become "possessed" by the hotel's evil spirits.

That was what I liked about The Shining [TV mini-series 1997] interpretation of the novel; it stayed more true to the source material. While the TV mini-series placed great emphasis on the relationship between Jack (played by Steven Weber, who delivered an incredible performance) and his son, Danny Torrance, Kubrick's version hardly depicted it.

Nicholson's Jack did not seem like he loved his son or even his wife very much or even at all. I believe that the director was attempting to depict a man who had grown tired of providing for his wife and son, and it seemed like he was annoyed with them from the start.

Lastly, Nicholson's Jack seemed like he was crazy from the start and whereas in the novel and TV mini-series, the character slowly spirals downward into insanity, largely due to the hotel's influence on him.

I have plenty more criticisms to rant abouut, but after seeing the TV mini-series version, I consider it to be better than the film, mainly because it sticks very close to the novel, while still maintaining the suspense and scare factor.

The acting is surprisingly first-rate coming from a TV version. So, to sum it up, Kubrick's film version is fantastic solely as a horror film, but largely fails in being faithful to King's novel.