Very disappointing .. if you read the book
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cowboykalira — 12 years ago(November 16, 2013 03:56 AM)
I can see your criticisms, having just reread the book and rewatched the movie myself.
On the other hand, it's hard to adapt a novel like Misery to the cinema in an accurate way. The horror in Misery is mostly psychological. It's the thoughts and feelings of Paul Sheldon that make the book so gruesome.
So what can you do, if you're making a movie based on such books? Well, first thing you need to do, is rewrite the story in such a way that the psychological horror becomes visible. By creating physical horror, suspense, and good dialogue. Rob Reiner actually did that rather well.
Personally, I think the movie has a couple of flaws. It moves too fast for one thing. Paul Sheldon just wrote a book that meant so much to him that he comments to his editor "When I've finished this one, I might just have something to put on my gravestone". And then he burns it after just two, not even particularly violent, outbursts by Annie Wilkes, and two minutes of "friendly" discussion while being sprayed with kerosene? That could have been made more believable. In the book it gets spun out over the course of a couple of weeks, and by the time he does burn his book, she has already shown much darker sides of herself.
I think the movie could have done with just a little bit more build-up. Not a lot, maybe one or two more scenes, showing more of Annie Wilkes' worryingly erratic behaviour, and Pauls excruciating pain, could have done the job, considering the capabilities of the actors.
All thing's considered, the movie does convey a lot of the book's suspense, especially in the second half, when we get to see a bit more of the Annie we get to know so well in the book. And Kathy Bates is possibly my favourite female baddie in a movie ever. Also, the side-show of the Sherrif and his wife works great in the movie, to give it a little bit more grounding in the real world.
I salute Rob Reiner for making the movie his own, instead of just trying to be an accurate depiction of the book. I doubt it could have been made better by sticking closer to Stephen King's vision. It's imperfect, but maybe that encourages a few more people to actually read the book, and see what they're missing. -
dogstar-12 — 12 years ago(December 23, 2013 01:45 AM)
I haven't read the book, but what Paul went through in the film was quite enough to make this a genuinely tense horror movie. Cutting off his feet and thumbs? Sounds like it would basically make this film into torture porn, and I think Quentin Tarantino caters for that market quite adequately already.
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Bernnard_Black — 12 years ago(January 06, 2014 10:58 AM)
This book, like most King books, is hard to do justice too in a film because so much of what makes the books good is internal dialogue. There's no easy way to put that on screen, so it gets left out.
I think they did a pretty good job with this one, but agree that the Novril addiction should have been left in. That was a big part of his character in the novel, and was the first thing we see him do that indicates there is more to him than a shallow, self-absorbed writer with a big ego. His ability to beat the addiction and start planning his escape while cooperating with Annie was a big part of the book, and it got sort of left out in the film. Still a pretty good film and all, but you gotta admit that had they done the hobbling scene from the book it would have been a LOT darker, and really shown just how damn crazy Annie was. For those that didn't read it:
She chopped of his foot with an axe, and then cauterized the wound with a blowtorch because she didn't have time for a tourniquet. No anesthesia, either.
Here's to the health of Cardinal Puff. -
CptHowdy87 — 9 years ago(September 23, 2016 02:15 AM)
Gore just makes things comical. Look at Kill Bill.
You can't take the violence in that movie seriously.
Nor are you really meant to. The whole thing is intentionally completely over the top and hyper-stylized. -
mjd_subs2 — 12 years ago(March 10, 2014 05:25 AM)
Agreed. I was floored at how Hollywood destroyed "Flowers in the Attic" and make a point of not watching movies based on books I've already read. Or, I will put many years between watching a movie and reading the book it's based on so I avoid that unconsicous comparison.
In my experience, a movie, no matter how well done, can't compete with the detail and characterization of a well-written book. The beauty of the written word leaves it to the reader's imagination to "see" the story play out perfectly in our minds whereas the big screen makes those definitions for us and simply can't bring the story to life the way everyone pictures it in their mind. That's why we see these constant debates on this site (and others) about various movies.
At the end of the day, I'm an avid reader and I love being engrossed in a story. I never imagine it being made into a movie (and don't usually care if it is). I enjoy movies too and appreciate when they are well done, but that seems to happen less and less in recent years. -
seahawksfan — 11 years ago(April 15, 2014 12:19 AM)
It would have been nice if the movie included more scenes that display Annie's mental state; her catatonic periods, the scene with the rat, etc.
But while the book is better, I think the film is still terrific and a good companion to the book. The gory bits were removed and that's a shame, but the suspense is still there and is more important anyways. -
NoahBody — 11 years ago(April 15, 2014 09:00 AM)
Very disappointing .. if you read the book
I have read the book several times. In fact I'd rank it fairly high if I was to stack-rank SK's books. I also very much enjoyed this film. Was it different in some ways? Sure, but film is a different medium and changes are to be expected. -
Strangerhand — 11 years ago(October 20, 2014 05:06 AM)
Pfft, whatever! I've read the book and this film has
never
disappointed me though I've seen it many times since it was newly released in '90. In fact on the contrary I've given Rob Reiner's
Misery
10 of 10 stars.
I suppose I should note that although Stephen King's novel is the better of the twoeven though that's the case like 99% of the time anywaythe film is far from "very disappointing", man. -
JellyFish19 — 11 years ago(November 04, 2014 03:09 PM)
I read the book exactly 10 years ago, if I remember correctly it was from a first person (Paul's) perspective, so it really felt more painful and gory, but this was still a pretty suspenseful adaptation.
All those hopeful escape moments that were crushed in front of the viewer kept me on the edge, even when I already knew the ending. I'm sure this would be classified as a slasher horror movie if Annie would just chop of his legs with an axe like in the book. -
triofreehill — 11 years ago(February 24, 2015 01:29 PM)
I kinda agree. The movie is really good, but the book is better. It's more complex, you feel more anxiety and the whole atmosfere is much more intense.
For an adaptation, it's really good. I just guess that King's writting makes the story more compelling. Maybe if he had written the screenplay, these amazing scenes wouldn't have been cut out.
But anyway, it's a good adaptation, and I really loved Kathy Bates' performance. She was exactly like I imagined -
Cult_of_Kibner — 9 years ago(July 03, 2016 10:42 AM)
books are always better than movies
Not in my experience.
and don't have problems and limits of time as movies
That's a double edged sword though. Sometimes authors drone on and on, dragging the story out longer than it needs to be. -
Kaliyugaforkix — 10 years ago(August 09, 2015 09:59 AM)
I think it was decent for a Hollywood adaptation and everything that implies. Understandably they opened up the setting and added more characters because the book is such a chamber piece but they didn't come close to the original's darkness. That's the kind of thing King doesn't seem to do much now- nasty as hell; I don't doubt he was dealing with drug addiction. It probably gave him the edge he used to have.
Since most of the novel is so internalized like
Gerald's Game
they never stood a chance plumbing the depths the book got at. Its like a Cole's Notes. Maybe today the audience could handle foot amputation/blowtorch cauterization but they still couldn't properly illustrate the weird symbiosis between Sheldon and Annie, the way his creative life merges with real-time events as the Misery project takes shape. In the book Annie becomes the dark god Paul has to appease like Scheherazade on amphetamines, constantly offering up new chapters to assuage her wrath and getting lost in the storytelling despite himself. Its bleak. There's nothing like that here, just solid suspense-comedy (which is fine); it was probably the best direction to take if they weren't going for depth. I just wonder why people bother sometimes since visual translation usually means dumbing down for mass appeal. I guess that's the medium, without the right director the images do all the heavy lifting for you.