Rob Reiner’s sourly funny captivity thriller rests on Kathy Bates and James Caan, and both make it worth the discomfort. The tension occasionally needs tightening, but the performances make its ugly view of fandom horribly persuasive.
Misery is a sharp, unpleasantly funny thriller that makes excellent use of two actors and one bad relationship. Rob Reiner, directing William Goldman’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novel, understands how quickly an admirer can become frightening when admiration grants them rights over somebody else. Paul Sheldon writes; Annie Wilkes reads him and believes that gives her a say. We recommend it for the performances, with the reservation that the suspense sometimes lasts longer than the dramatic situation can comfortably bear.
Kathy Bates makes Annie’s devotion as alarming as her hostility, which is why the performance works before it has to become openly threatening. Her certainty that she matters to Paul leaves him little space to disagree, and Bates does not soften that certainty to make Annie easier company. We were unsettled by the pleasure Bates gives Annie’s devotion: this is someone enjoying a relationship Paul cannot leave. The dark humour comes from the same place, because Annie takes her status as a fan with oppressive seriousness.
James Caan has the quieter role, and his restraint is essential to keeping the central pairing believable. Paul’s writing has become a matter of survival, so dealing with his admirer requires him to judge how much room he has to manoeuvre. Caan makes that effort convincing; the captive writer remains a person with a working mind, even when Annie dominates our attention. It is generous acting, and it gives Bates a credible opponent throughout their unequal contest.
Barry Sonnenfeld’s cinematography keeps our attention on the actors, making their proximity uncomfortable without fussing over it. Norman Garwood’s production design helps make the confinement credible, giving the performers a setting that does not compete for notice. Both serve a thriller in which the actors can hold our attention without much assistance from their surroundings. The result suits Reiner’s concentration on the central pair, and helps keep an improbable relationship believable enough to worry us.
Robert Leighton’s editing lets the exchanges develop long enough for politeness and menace to become difficult to separate. There are stretches, though, when we have understood the danger and the film keeps pressing it; the 107-minute running time could stand a little tightening. Marc Shaiman’s score does its work efficiently, although its insistence on suspense occasionally feels unnecessary alongside the actors. These are small irritations, but they matter in a film so dependent on keeping us alert to changes between two people.
Goldman’s screenplay is shrewd about the selfishness that can sit inside devotion, particularly when a reader feels a writer has become their property. The joke is ugly enough to support the thriller without requiring a lecture about celebrity. Reiner is good at making that ugliness entertaining, though he seems less interested in exploring it beyond the immediate contest. By the standards of the confined psychological thriller, this is confident work; anyone hoping for a searching account of why people become possessive will find it less satisfying. Watch it with someone whose affection for a favourite author has sensible limits.
