This review is part of captaind's The Good Movies EpiGuide 2 write-off: http://www.epinions.com/content_5245804676.

Stephen King's 1987 book Misery successfully established a writer's nightmare scenario that doesn't involve a mental block. The undoubted culmination of his own fears and addictions at the time, his surrogate main character found himself literally imprisoned by his own success in the form of a mentally unbalanced, maniacally devoted "number one fan." No surprise is it to learn that King, whose literary works have been the bane of many movies since the adaptation of his debut novel, Carrie, was reluctant to sell Misery. The ratio of competent to crummy King adaptations was not even, with more mediocrities and outright dreck in his name.

The director who did champion the notion of making it into a movie had to be reliable and experienced. Enter Rob Reiner, himself sympathetic to King's creative dilemmas having transitioned from TV acting to big name director on the backs of classic comedies like This Is Spinal Tap, The Sure Thing and The Princess Bride. In 1986, Reiner made one of the best non-horror King-based movies with the adolescent passage drama Stand By Me, based on a novella called "The Body." After When Harry Met Sally, Reiner reunited with screenwriter William Goldman to help get the film version of MISERY into development.

Like many of King's works, you can sense the thematic mixture of gallows humor and the unexpected evils lurking beneath mundane Americana very well both in the book and in the movie. Paul Sheldon (James Caan) is introduced as just finishing his latest manuscript and celebrating via his ritual of having one cigarette and a glass of Dom Perignon. The movie opens with insert-style close shots of the various items, establishing certain vices that will likely come to help him out in due time. Paul is leaving the Colorado cabin and workplace he has frequented for a while, heading back to New York until a blizzard sidetracks him and his car is a snow-capped wreck away from the main road.

The nearly-lifeless Paul is rescued by Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates), a nurse intimately familiar with the series of Victorian romance novels centered around the character of Misery Chastain. As Paul comes into consciousness, her introduction seems prophetically distorted and fractured ("I'm your number one fan. There's nothing to worry about. You'll be just fine. I'll take care of you"). A single, stout presence who is jolly over such an opportunity to restore to health her single favorite author, Annie assures Paul that his condition will improve soon and he can return to the outside world. Of course, a week passes and soon Paul realizes Annie wants to possess him and keep him dependant on her.

Clues into Annie's bipolar, obsessive state arise even during the seemingly safe first few days. Annie snaps catatonically over the profanity in Paul's untitled new manuscript and confides to Paul hints that not only has she adopted warped romantic standards as the result of her repeated reading of the novels, but also that she has stalked him upon his every visit to the cabin. Unbeknownst to Annie, she has just picked up from the store the latest and last of Sheldon's "Misery" novels, conveyed to us via a flashback involving Paul discussing his decision to go in a new direction with his agent, Marcia Sindell (Lauren Bacall). Sindell is aware Paul's killing his cash cow, but the author has grown bored with his life's work and wants to have something else which he can be truly proud of. Annie, meanwhile, makes it to the end of the novel after gradual reading and berates Paul as a murderer in the middle of the night.

Annie has isolated Paul purposefully so that she can show him the way to set his mind free, which entails burning the unpublished work and typing "Misery's Return." Disabled and drugged, Paul is coerced into working on this project all the while engaging in a battle of wills against his captor, his every attempt at escaping beset by misfortune. The most unsettling moment is when Annie discovers Paul's left his room and punishes him via the act of hobbling, which involves crippling him with the aid of a pretty nasty sledgehammer. The scene remains of the most gruesome moments ever to not involve the actual shedding of blood and to rely mostly on the agonized screams and expressions of the victim (capped off by the disconcerting punch line "God, I love you" ).

MISERY falls more into the category of suspense than in conventional horror. Like the best of the King movie adaptations up to that point (Carrie, The Shining, The Dead Zone), it immerses you in the interaction of its characters in a particularly doomy setting to build up tension and shock. Since the movie is basically confined to the play-like mechanism of two characters in one setting, the difficulty in achieving such investment is more apparent. The helpless, sarcastic Paul is forced upon himself to deal with and depart from Annie, who remains casual and chipper even after explosive acts of verbal and physical abuse. As it turns out, Annie has a few particular skeletons in her closet, a lot of them from the dead bodies of infants, and her immersion has merged with her malevolence whilst adopting a façade of ordinariness for something particularly disturbing.

Rob Reiner got a crash course in suspense movie filmmaking on the basis of this film, having been more used to the loose, situation-based nature of his comic endeavors. While he could've easily failed (and indeed the director goes into overkill when it comes to lingered-over inserts), Reiner turns out to keep the movie's gears grinding with the help of some very polished cogs. Goldman's script does an impressive job of remaining true to King's story whilst building the proper tension and maintaining storytelling economics integral to film. The characters also need to be properly defined so that whatever bleakly humorous elements are invested are earned and appreciated.

The exemplary scene I think of involves the "romantic" dinner between Paul and Annie, which is kind of the movie's unspoken centerpiece in regards to black comedy. By this time, Annie has become not just the angel of death looming over his shoulder ("Think of me as your inspiration" ), but also the world's most hands-on and temperamental literary editor (see her great monologue about the cheating serials from her childhood). Reiner's regular editor, Robert Leighton, cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld (who would move onto directing with the following year's Addams Family) and composer Marc Shaiman are to also be commended for helping this thriller keep up a pace and foreboding menace that smooths out the plot. A particular moment of such formal unity occurs when Paul breaks from his room after he convinces Annie to go out and get " smudge-proof" typing paper. The parallel editing heightens up moments on the way back to the bedroom upon the noise of Annie's return, with her house keys contrasted to Paul's bobby skeleton key.

James Caan and Kathy Bates are in fine form here. Bates, of course, was a stage actress unfamiliar to movie audiences but whom Goldman was aware of when he wrote the script. The performance she gives is an impressive display of simmering rage and deceptive congeniality, but also tinged with hints of sadness and brutally honest personality. Annie's colloquial attempts at sidestepping obscenities tests her comic prowess as well, with "cockadoodie" eventually giving way to a much more vulgar epithet using the same opening letters. Goldman knew something about Bates that was perhaps an asset to the character, and maybe she was only one of the few who could've pulled such a nuance-important role down pat. Supposedly, Anjelica Huston was considered yet was unable because of work on Stephen Frears' The Grifters, which netted her an Oscar nod in the same year as Bates' win.

The role of Paul, meanwhile, was turned down by many popular actors, including Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Gene Hackman, Harrison Ford, Warren Beatty (who actually collaborated with Goldman at some points), and Richard Dreyfuss (who also turned down When Harry Met Sally). James Caan eventually took the role and found himself in the unenviable position of being an incredibly physical presence confined to either a bed or a wheelchair for a great deal of the film. This incentive helps him out tenfold in conveying Paul's cynical, grumpy demeanor whilst also creating a main character whom you do hope gets the upper hand eventually. In small but refreshing roles are Richard Farnsworth and Francis Sternhagen as a husband-and-wife law enforcement team, Buster and Virginia, who investigate Paul's absence at his agent's request. The former starts to read all of Paul's previous novels in an attempt to deduce a potential suspect.

The movie's coda feels a bit boilerplate coming after the grueling final tango between Paul and Annie, but that was the only real negative reaction I had to the film in terms of plot. A lot of critical drubbing has been made of the film's "fat-phobia" subtext (first brought up by Ann Hornaday of the Washington Post and later referenced by Bill Chambers, editor-in-chief at Film Freak Central, in his Epinions review), which is kind of tough not to think of when you see Annie lying in bed watching Love Connection and having chips and soda. But I felt that bit was more indicative if ironic comment on her character's consumptive personality, especially in regards to why she grew so attached to Paul's novels. Even with touches like these, also including the cross necklace which is also a sardonic touch which relates to her righteous indignation and missionary stance, Bates never condescends or goes easily cynical. It was the oddest scene in the movie for me, I'll concede.

MISERY does manage the feat of being a believably anxious, grueling psychological suspense film that admittedly takes liberties with King's tome (I remember Paul lost a thumb as well as a few more keys on his typewriter in the text) yet stands up as a strong adaptation. The give-and-take between Caan and Bates alone certifies it as highly recommendable. On August 1, 2007, MGM/20th Century Fox Home Entertainment finally issued a Region 1 Collector's Edition DVD to make up for yet another early, underwhelming digital presentation. There are some extras both new and ported over from a previous international special edition release in 2004, but the overdue anamorphic 1.85:1 presentation is the biggest boost this film could've used.

We're talking about an impressive, across-the-board excellent presentation that blows away any previous home video incarnation of the movie hands down. The most minor of print flaws and grain in outdoors sequences hinted at the movie's age 18-year age, with even the movie's muted color palette looking more modernly refined and vivid. There was not a single substantial dip in detail when it came to wide shots, thus rendering Mr. Levinson's photography all the more impressive. Blackness and shadows looked full and proper, and no issues with compression or edge enhancement were noted. This is merely one half-star away from total perfection.

The remixed if restricted Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround track predictably anchors a lot of the action up front, with very little conflict over the various elements. The surrounds both front and rear, although the case is much rarer in the latter channels, are used to back up ominous ambient sounds and Shaiman's idiosyncratic suspense score. The worse the weather, the better the chances you'll hear the mix open up. Dialogue was rooted in the center and always sounded intelligible, whereas sound effects were crisp and properly separated, often allowing for some bass frequency. Without the presence of a Dolby 2.0 track (except in Spanish and French languages), the sole English audio track works fine enough. Optional subtitles are in English and Spanish.

Two spotty audio commentary tracks are provided, one with Rob Reiner and the other with William Goldman. Both men admit to not having seen the film in years, and despite their best efforts at insight, this shows. Reiner's commentary starts off strong enough by discussing how he became personal with the material and had to face certain fears during the snowy location scouting, but the movie's natural soundtrack crops up in long chunks and Reiner's comments become infrequent save for the pointing out of obvious plot elements. Goldman's gaps are more problematic because of uncertainty as to how much of the material is either his or King's, and the stretches of dead air become more frustrating. He is upfront about his screenwriting method, the notion of actors being uncomfortable playing subordinates to women and a key scene he resisted changing despite admitting it was for the best. In the end, both tracks could've been edited together to have made for a more gratifying experience.

The 30-minute documentary "Misery Loves Company" gathers some of the commentary insights and builds upon them with additional interviews from not just Reiner and Goldman, but also Sonnenfeld, Caan, Bates, and Sternhagen. Topics such as securing the book's rights, the casting, the collaboration between Reiner and Sonnenfeld, and the elements of the characters favored by the cast and crew alike are discussed. The actors discuss the delicate nature of their stunt work and, in the short's most introspective bit, Bates reflects on how winning the Academy Award was both a source of pride and pressure. There is just enough behind-the-scenes video footage to go along with the film clips and interviews to make for one strong retrospective featurette.

At 14:28, Marc Shaiman gets his own spotlight extra feature with the "Musical Misery Tour," and he is in enough good spirits to make it just as worthwhile. Charting his own experiences as a means of stretching out, Shaiman gets into the specifics of his score be it the comparison and performance of certain notes as well as the importance of having the proper volume when viewing it in a theater. He also is concise in discussing the motivations of his cues and the basic nature of his compositions.

The commentaries and short subjects have all been ported over from the special edition package familiar to foreign DVD buyers in the UK and Australia, at least. The newest additions to the U.S. Collector's Edition are more gimmicky and even a touch exploitative, as we get a quintet of pieces relating to real life stalking situations and psychology. Only "Diagnosing Annie Wilkes" (8:47) and "Celebrity Stalkers" (5:07) pay lip service to the obsessive character in MISERY. During "Diagnosing," forensic psychologist Reid Meloy checks off a laundry list of psychopathologies (manic depression, sadomasochism, delusional affair) which Annie displays throughout the course of the film. The latter explains how the delusional affair aspect is a key component of these particular cases, pointing out how a " narcissistic linking fantasy" is essentially a full-circle cycle of turbulent emotion.

The other three pieces are less engrossing and fall even further into pop psychology territory. "Advice for the Stalked" (4:58) goes over the steps one should take should they find themselves under someone's unhealthy attention, such as hanging up whenever the stalker calls, keeping a log for prosecution's sake or perhaps learning karate as a form of self-protection. "Profile of a Stalker" (6:17) whittles down cases as to what specific type of person is more likely to be a stalker, whereas "Anti-Stalking Law" is far too brief and depthless (at 2:23) to register as truly informative.

Concluding the package are a pair of theatrical trailers, including a special "Season's Greetings" preview with delicious narration by Percy Rodrigues set against a choral recital of "Little Drummer Boy." The insert booklet came with my package this time, replete with the scene selection list and a production notes-centric essay separated by eight headlining titles ("Misery Is..." offers Caan, Bates and Reiner's ideas of what the word means).

Movie: 4/5.
Video: 4.5/5.
Audio: 4/5.
Extras: 3.5/5.
Final: 4/5.

MISERY runs approximately 107 minutes and was released theatrically on November 30, 1990. A Columbia Pictures/Castle Rock Entertainment/Nelson Entertainment presentation, the movie was rated R for violence and language.