Film Response – Misery (Directed by Rob Reiner)

3.5

Although I enjoyed the concept of the film and got a kick out of some of the gruesome parts, the film itself fails to deliver. It never uses its full potential to explore the psychological realms of depth that must be going through these two characters’ heads. For me the film doesn’t ask why she singled out Paul’s Misery novels, and it doesn’t even seem like she is some perverse mastermind with sinister motives to hold him there from the very beginning, this was something that bothered me greatly. Another thing I didn’t enjoy about this film is that the Misery novels made me feel like some outsider, I felt like I wasn’t in on this epic tale and that in actual fact does not exist, it annoyed me because these books are a huge part of the plot and the viewer just has to guess and fill in the gaps with scraps of information that is blurted out by the characters.

But there are some of good aspects of this film that I greatly enjoyed. For example, the scene where Paul and Annie have dinner they toast the Paul’s books, they say that they toast to Misery, (“To Misery?” [Paul]. “To Misery.” [Annie]), this almost has a comedic element because it seems like they are in fact toasting to mental discomfort and sadness instead of Paul’s books. I also found myself routing for the sheriff, I think this is the case because I find that he is a believable character. This was effective as I found his presence in the film became like some fresh air of sanity and hope, it was refreshing to know that people were looking for Paul. There was almost a strange contrast of the way in which people cared for Paul; Annie cared but was obsessed and kept him hidden away for her own self afflictions whereas the outside world cared and wanted to know where he was to ensure his safety.