Misery (film)

Famed novelist Paul Sheldon is the author of a successful series of Victorian romance novels featuring a character named Misery Chastain. Wanting to focus on more serious stories, he writes a manuscript for a new novel that he hopes will launch his post-Misery career. While traveling from Silver Creek, Colorado, to his home in New York City, Paul is caught in a blizzard and crashes his car, rendering him unconscious. A nurse named Annie Wilkes finds him and brings him to her remote home.

Paul regains consciousness and finds himself bedridden with broken legs and a dislocated shoulder. Annie claims to be his "number one fan" and constantly praises him and his novels. She offers to care for him until the telephone lines are re-connected and the local roads re-open following the blizzard. Out of gratitude, Paul lets her read his new manuscript. She angrily criticizes the profanity in his new work, disturbing him, but she quickly apologizes. When she reads the latest Misery novel and discovers that Misery dies at the end, she flies into a rage, revealing to Paul that nobody knows where he is and that she had never informed any kind of authority or his agent that she had rescued him, effectively holding him prisoner in her secluded home.

Annie forces Paul to burn the only copy of his new manuscript. She also provides a second-hand typewriter and orders him to begin writing a new novel titled Misery's Return, in which he brings the character back to life. Paul uses a bobby pin to unlock his door and leave his room. He begins stockpiling his painkillers and tries drugging Annie during dinner by spiking her wine with crushed painkillers, but his plan is foiled after she accidentally knocks over her glass. He later finds a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about Annie's past and learns Annie was tried for the deaths of several infants in the hospital where she worked, but the trial collapsed due to lack of evidence. Annie had quoted lines from his Misery novels during her trial. Annie soon discovers that Paul has been sneaking out of his room and breaks his ankles with a sledgehammer to prevent him from escaping again.

The local sheriff, Buster, is investigating Paul's disappearance. Clues lead him to pay Annie a visit, but she murders him with a shotgun when he finds Paul drugged in the basement; she then attempts to kill Paul in a murder-suicide, but Paul, concealing a can of lighter fluid in his pocket, convinces her to let him live long enough to finish the novel in order to "give Misery back to the world."

When the manuscript is done, Paul asks for a cigarette and champagne, and Annie complies. However, to her horror, Paul uses the lighter to set the manuscript on fire, telling her, "I learned it from you." Paul then strikes Annie with the typewriter after she tries futilely to save the manuscript, and they engage in a violent struggle, with Paul suffering a gunshot wound to the shoulder from her revolver. He trips her, causing her to strike her head on the typewriter, then crawls out of the room, but Annie recovers and attacks again. Paul grabs a metal doorstop and bashes Annie in the face, finally killing her.

Eighteen months later, Paul, now walking with a cane, meets his agent, Marcia, in a restaurant in New York City. The two discuss his first post-Misery novel, and Marcia tells him about the positive early buzz. Paul replies that he wrote the novel for himself as a way to help deal with the horrors of his captivity. Marcia asks if he would consider a non-fiction book about his captivity, but Paul—who suffers psychological trauma from the experience—declines. Paul then sees a waitress approaching him, whom he hallucinates as Annie, commenting that he still thinks about her once in a while. The waitress tells Paul that she is his number one fan, causing Paul to meekly reply, "That's very sweet of you."

• James Caan as Paul Sheldon
• Kathy Bates as Annie Wilkes
• Richard Farnsworth as Sheriff Buster
• Frances Sternhagen as Deputy Virginia
• Lauren Bacall as Marcia Sindell
• Graham Jarvis as Libby
• Jerry Potter as Pete

J. T. Walsh makes an uncredited cameo appearance as State Trooper Sherman Douglas.[6] Director Rob Reiner also makes an uncredited appearance as a helicopter pilot.[6][7]

Producer Andrew Scheinman read Stephen King's novel Misery on an airplane, and later recommended it to his director partner at Castle Rock Entertainment, Rob Reiner. Reiner eventually invited writer William Goldman to write the film's screenplay.[8]

In the original novel, Annie Wilkes severs one of Paul Sheldon's feet with an ax. Goldman loved the scene and argued for it to be included, but Reiner insisted that it be changed so that she only breaks his ankles. Goldman subsequently wrote that this was the correct decision as the visual depiction of an amputation would cause the audience to hate Annie instead of sympathizing with her madness.[9]

The part of Paul Sheldon was originally offered to William Hurt (twice), then Kevin Kline, Michael Douglas, Harrison Ford, Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Richard Dreyfuss, Gene Hackman, and Robert Redford, but they all turned it down.[10] Warren Beatty was interested in the role, wanting to turn him into a less passive character,[11] but eventually had to drop out as post-production of Dick Tracy extended. Eventually someone suggested James Caan, who agreed to play the part. Caan commented that he was attracted by how Sheldon was a role unlike any of his others, and that "being a totally reactionary character is really much tougher."[12] Anjelica Huston and Bette Midler were both offered the role of Annie Wilkes, but both of them turned it down.[13] Midler would later say that she deeply regretted this decision.[14] According to Reiner, it was Goldman who suggested that Kathy Bates, then unknown, should portray Annie Wilkes.[15]

The film's score was composed by Marc Shaiman.[16] Three recordings by Liberace, Annie Wilkes's favorite musician, are featured in the film, as is "Shotgun" by Junior Walker and the All-Stars, which plays before Paul's car accident.

• Misery at IMDb
• Misery at the TCM Movie Database
• Misery at Box Office Mojo
• Misery at Rotten Tomatoes
• Misery at Metacritic