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Now Showing: Misery (1990)
Every so often I’ll hear a particularly folksy Americanism—the word “oodles” perhaps—and rather than being charmed, I find that a chill is running down my spine. This wasn’t always the case, but since watching Misery for the first time, I cannot help but think about Kathy Bates’ performance as the deceptively folksy, wholly psychotic nurse and rural Colorado resident Annie Wilkes. Bates won an Oscar for her portrayal of Wilkes in this snow bound thriller based on a classic Steven King novel. Directed by Rob Reiner and with a screenplay by legendary writer William Goldman—whose other credits include All the President’s Men, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Princess Bride—the film takes a simple premise and turns it into an edge of your seat thriller. (Be warned, minor spoilers ahead.)
There’s very little preamble in Misery. Paul Sheldon, a famous romance writer played by James Caan, finishes his latest manuscript while staying at a lodge deep in the Rockies. He smokes a cigarette, drinks a glass of bubbly, hops in his Mustang, and then promptly flies off the road on a patch of ice during a blizzard. His agent and a local sheriff start halfheartedly looking for him when he doesn’t return home on time, but the audience already knows that he’s been “rescued” by Wilkes and is convalescing in her home with two broken legs. Naturally, it turns out that Wilkes is Sheldon’s biggest fan, to the point of having a shrine to him in her living room. It doesn’t take long before Sheldon realizes that he’s more prisoner than guest, and he’s tasked by his caretaker with writing a new installment of the “Misery” series of bodice rippers. Don’t worry, this all happens in the first 20 minutes, so I’m not giving much away.
Misery is in many ways the perfect film for this peculiar moment in time. It was originally released in December, and its icy landscapes and isolated mountain home have a seasonal resonance. And being trapped in a couple of rooms, obsessing over your health, with an increasingly erratic roommate—perhaps while trying to finish a creative project—is basically just a description of the entirety of 2020. As a writer, I found some of Paul Sheldon’s struggles to be deeply relatable, although thankfully both of my legs are whole and (so far as I know) no one is systematically drugging me so that I finish writing my magnum opus about a woman in love on the range during the waning years of 19th century.
While the script and pacing are great, the engine that drives Misery are the twin performances of Caan and Bates. While Caan plays the protagonist, and delivers a standout performance of a man with two broken legs trying to navigate through a hostile home, Bates takes total control of the movie from her first moment on the screen. From her delivery of folksy patois to her introduction of her pet pig, Bates wins every scene thanks to her ability to totally inhabit Wilkes’ narrow view of the world and an uncanny earnestness, even during the silliest and darkest moments of the story. Wilkes is a character who fundamentally fails to appreciate irony, and Bates understands the meaning of this completely, elevating the character to a register more familiar from Italian operas than American thrillers.
Of course, Misery isn’t exactly a thinker. But it will linger for days thanks to its larger-than-life antagonist. Soon enough, if you’re like Sheldon, you’ll see versions of Wilkes every way you turn. While she may be a uniquely evil character, her smothering tendencies, neuroses, and obsessions are instantly recognizable in many people—perhaps even those you live with through the long, dark winter—though they reside just beneath the surface. So pop some popcorn, make a warm drink, and sit down on the couch to learn just how bad a winter storm can really get.
Misery is streaming on HBO Max.
Think of the children!
No doubt, 2020 has been a terrible year to be a kid and especially to be a teenager. Schools have been remote, or sort of in-person, then remote, then in-person and outdoors, or some version of all of these. Birthday parties have been cancelled. Summer camps torpedoed. They can’t see their friends or do much of anything, really, unless it’s an outdoor activity.
Now, in the last 24 hours, much of the Northeast has been socked with a massive snowstorm. Alternate side parking was cancelled here in New York. In a typical year, today would have been declared a snow day, schools would be closed, and kids would have been tearing it up on the slopes in Prospect Park. But NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio is an enemy of fun—and apparently hates children—and concluded that since so many were going to school online this year anyway, they didn’t deserve a day to build snowmen and wallop each other in the face with snowballs.
Well, I have this to say to the man who stole a treasured ritual from this city’s long-suffering kids: SHAME ON YOU.
Give the kids their snow day! It’s—literally—the least you can do.
The Last of the Lightkeepers is on Amazon!
A few weeks back I spoke with director Rob Apse about his latest documentary feature, The Last of the Lightkeepers. It’s a beautiful film and is now available to stream on Amazon Prime Video. The film captures the unusual fate of America’s lighthouses. After decades a key infrastructure, America’s lighthouses are being decommissioned, and now, “there are all these people working on lighthouses, and they’re doing it out of their own pocket,” Apse says. “The government has released over 100 lighthouses to communities, states, nonprofits, or private owners who bid on them. It’s kind of wild if you think about it.”
Reading List:
Remember all of those white collar workers who decided life would be better in small cities and the suburbs? Well, turns out big tech and finance have concluded they don’t need to pay them as much if they’re going to live in—for instance—Rochester. Bloomberg has the deets.
And the headline says it all over at The Onion: “Amazon Worker Emerges From Holiday Overtime Shift To Find 3,000 Years Have Passed In Outside World”