Thrill and Suffering—Misery (US 1990)

Misery is the darkly ironic, suspenseful movie, directed by Rob Reiner and based on Stephen King’s novel with the same title. It’s the story of cultural exploitation with its suffering of the terror of idolatry and of the underlying themes of redemption and separation. Paul Sheldon is the highly successful author of a series of a sort of Cinderella novels about a poor girl who turns out to be a princess. Annie Wilkes, the nurse, is Paul Sheldon’s deeply devoted fan who rescues him by a chance luck (and some stalking) out of his very damaged car, carries him into her house, nurses his badly broken legs and other wounds and has the object of her devotion in her control. But Paul is not, as she soon founds out, the author she wants him to be: Cinderella dies in the last book. Annie forces Paul to rewrite the book and change it according to her wishes. She is a deadly serious reader. She takes the cultural play and exploitation with the deep longings a certain industry is eager to fulfil not as play, but as a sort of reality. A murderous separation is the climax and outcome. Paul Sheldon gives up his easy business and turns to the truth searching of ambitious literature. Stephen King speaks here for himself.