Misery (1990)

Annie Wilkes: Now the time has come. I put two bullets in my gun. One for me, and one for you. Oh darling, it will be so beautiful. "Paul Sheldon used to write for a living. Now he's writing to stay alive."Every time I watch Misery, I like it more and more. There's just so much talent involved here. First off, there's the source material from Stephen King. Misery is one of his finest stories. Then there's screenwriter William Goldman who does a good job of writing the story for the screen. Barry Sonnenfeld as cinematographer and of course Rob Reiner. Reiner knows how to make great adaptions of King's books; Stand By Me and Misery speak for themselves. And you can't forget about two stunning performances given by James Caan and Kathy Bates(who took home an Oscar for her psycho performance). There's just too much greatness for Misery to not be good.As in many of King's stories, the protagonist is a writer. This time he is actually a successful one to boot. He has a long running franchise of Misery books, and he's just finished his last one. He is deciding to move on from Misery and decides to kill her off. While driving home from his regular writing spot in Colorado; he gets into a blizzard and crashes. "Luckily" for him, a nice woman, who just happens to be his number one fan, pulls him from the wreckage and takes him home. At first she seems like the nicest woman in the world, but she has an angry side and quite a past as well.The movie works well in many genres. At times it is just a drama, then it's a thriller and it even has moments of pure horror. There are scenes of high tension. My favorite scene is where Annie leaves the house and Paul wheels himself around the house. As he explores, we see Annie getting closer and closer to home. What will happen? Well that is just part of that high tension.Misery is regarded as one of the best King adaptions ever, and that claim is totally justified. Through the picture perfect pacing and the magnificent performances, we are shown the true brilliance of King's story just about as well as it could have been done. Kathy Bates plays a mood swinging psychopath to perfection. Her fits of rage are simply astounding. Caan does a good job in performance, where for the most part, he is either laying on his back or sitting in a wheel chair at a typewriter. While there's other King films I like more, this is still an all-time classic. Rich in character and in plot, it works like magic; putting in the viewer in the same helpless state that Paul is in. Misery is a must see.