Misery

Been on a Stephen King kick lately and I rewatched this after re-reading the book.

I still think it's a decent film. The two lead performances make it of course. And it's engaging and fast paced.

But watching it right after reading the book makes the film's flaws a little more apparent.

In streamlining it, William Goldman is forced to cut a lot of corners and the psychological complexity of the characters suffers as a result. Adding the supporting character of the sherriff opens the movie up more and allows for exposition, but it ultimately comes off like a ripoff of the Scatman Crothers subplot from The Shining.

Also... The tone is different. Annie Wilkes is more demonic in the novel. And Paul Sheldon is more vulnerable throughout. They way it's played here, gives things the feeling of a dark sitcom more than anything else.

One improvement is that things are more gradual. Paul actually likes Annie at first, and slowly begins to realize what he's dealing with. In the book he pretty much hates her from the start. The movie also allows you to pity Annie. Something that wasn't possible in the book.

Other than that, the book is definitely better.

It's still the last really good piece of material William Goldman was involved with.

(Bumped this because I realized my first post had been butchered by a computer glitch)

.....

I'll also add this: I think Caan is actually playing William Goldman.