This 2017 film was the work of writer-director Mike Flanagan, the creative force who subsequently would make The Haunting of Hill House and Doctor Sleep. He may have specifically won the opportunity to work on the latter with his results here, on what was long considered to be King's "unfilmable" book. Gerald's Game is the story of Jessie, whose husband Gerald handcuffs her to a bed in a sexual encounter... that goes very wrong when Gerald dies of a heart attack and leaves her stuck there. Jessie is tormented by her own thoughts and her own past as she remains trapped in the handcuffs with no hope of rescue.
This is an incredibly well-constructed script. It doesn't seem like it should be possible for this limited scenario to sustain a 103-minute movie. Yet it does... so well, in fact, that there isn't even a musical score for the main section of the story. (The score by The Newton Brothers is used essentially as bookends for the movie.) There are techniques employed to keep things engaging, but they don't feel like "tricks."
One of those techniques is to personify Jessie's inner struggles as a sort of "angel" and "demon" on her shoulder, encouraging and berating her in her predicament. To keep the movie tight and claustrophobic, these personalities are embodied by Jessie herself and her dead husband Gerald. The movie sets this up through smart show-not-tell, as the real Jessie must negotiate a series of escalating problems all while remaining trapped on the bed.
Mike Flanagan has clearly thought about how to stage his perfectly crafted script in great detail. Camera position is always just right to heighten the tension. Long takes are used not to a showy degree ("look at how long we've gone without cutting!") but for just the right length to draw you into actor and character. Cuts are just as cleverly deployed to guide the action -- and yes, though the main character is trapped on a bed, there is action.
This scenario also allows for two outstanding performances from two incredible actors. Bruce Greenwood serves up two distinct versions of Gerald that are still very much the same character -- the genuine article, and the mocking scold that is Jessie's mental image of him. But the real tour de force is by Carla Gugino as Jessie, so good it leaves me short on adjectives to praise her. She'd be great enough even only as "Brain Jessie," the hallucinatory advisor giving support. But of course, as real Jessie, she goes through every emotion on the spectrum as she struggles with the physical obstacle of the handcuffs. This movie would not work without Carla Gugino, and she rises to occasion with what would have been seen as an Oscar-caliber performance by an Academy truly looking to highlight the best performances and not just the most Oscar-y ones. (Henry Thomas also gives a unsettling and effective performance, but I'd rather not get into the movie's quite-limited use of other characters.)
The only thing I didn't like about this movie? To put it bluntly, the ending is ridiculous. The final 5-10 minutes tosses in what to my mind is a completely unnecessary twist on the proceedings -- a bewildering WTF that undermines a key element of the story by taking things too literally. I've heard that this is an almost 100% faithful rendering of the ending Stephen King wrote for the original book... and it could certainly be an exhibit in a trial over King's inability to end his stories well. (But he's already been convicted of that in the court of public opinion, right?) It's almost a "maybe you should just stop watching the movie at a certain point" situation -- the ending is that wild, and that easily excised from the rest of the movie.
Even with that ending, though, Gerald's Game is one of the best thrillers I've watched in ages. I'd give it an A-. It's a few years old now, so perhaps you've already seen it. But if you passed it over, perhaps thinking "how is that going to work for a whole movie," I highly recommend you head to Netflix and find out for yourself.
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