A Not-at-All Miserable Experience

It might seem preposterous that Rob Reiner and William Goldman, the director and writer (respectively) who made The Princess Bride, would reteam to adapt Stephen King's Misery for the screen. It might seem even more preposterous that I had never seen the movie. Yet both are true. Well... the latter no longer.

Of course, it's not possible to come at a movie this much in the zeitgeist (full of catch phrases and notorious scenes) with a fresh perspective or expectations. What's more, I actually read the original book many years ago. It was one of a handful of Stephen King books I once tried, as I do about every three years or so. (After which, when I reveal that I didn't think it was particularly good -- or bad -- to a fan, said fan replies immediately that I didn't really read one of King's "best" books.)

But I think in this case, that background was a very helpful thing. Because I think Misery was a far better movie than a book. From my recollection of the book, Stephen King got a little too bogged down in the premise of a writer being terrorized by a crazed fan. The movie wisely refocused on a victim being terrorized by a crazy person.

King spends huge chunks of the book writing about things that obviously "scare" him -- being a writer worried about his reputation, about churning out mass market work when he really wants to try "something different"; having unreasonable fans that prevent him from doing the work he really wants to do, forcing him to write things he doesn't want to. Newsflash, Mr. King: most of your readers don't know what that's like. Perhaps some aspiring writers dream of being so lucky as to have such problems, but these woes are completely unrelatable to your audience.

The movie does include one or two choice scenes of the relationship between writer and fan. But mostly, it keeps things far more visceral and accessible. What if you were utterly helpless, and in the "care" of an unstable lunatic? Well... now we're talking!

Except that the movie introduces a few weird problems of its own. In order to expand the cast from a simple two-hand piece of theater, the movie adds a character of an old sheriff and his wife. And while the two are moderately entertaining to watch (and well played by Richard Farnsworth and Frances Sternhagen), they don't really service the story at all. The leaps in logic that clue the sheriff into what's really going on strain credibility. And then, after an entire subplot spent following his investigation... he doesn't save the day. The point of all that then being...?

But fortunately, the movie still rests mostly in the hands of two characters, and both Kathy Bates and James Caan are excellent in their roles. Bates won the Oscar for this, and deservedly so, because she somehow makes dialogue that's just this side of laughably stupid on the page seem truly menacing on the screen. Less praised, but just as good, is Caan -- all the stronger, in my mind, for playing so against his type. Aside from that unfortunate stop at a toll booth in The Godfather, Caan's characters have often been strong, head-bashing type toughs. But in Misery, he is weak and vulnerable almost from beginning to end.

It's not a perfect movie, but a very good one. And, I think, the best adaptation I could imagine of the original material. I rate it a B.