Capital Celluloid 2017 - Day 257: Sat Sep 16

Misery (Reiner, 1990): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 6.20pm


This 35mm screening is part of the Stephen King season at BFI Southbank and you can find the details of the season here. Tonight's film will also be shown on September 25th when the movie will be introduced by Anna Bogutskaya, the BFI events programmer.

Chicago Reader review:
A skillfully pared-down (if psychologically thin) horror thriller (1990), adapted by William Goldman from a Stephen King novel and crisply directed by Rob Reiner. A best-selling novelist (James Caan), who's recently killed off his beloved romantic heroine in order to do more personal writing, gets caught in a blizzard, suffers a nearly fatal car accident, and is saved by a fanatic admirer (Kathy Bates) who holds him captive in her isolated house. The setup recalls Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy, though the fan has no aspirations for stardom and the macabre elements milk a certain snobbery and complacent misogyny. Fortunately, the situation is made more complex by the novelist being a rather supercilious creep and by Bates's remarkably nuanced (and deservedly Oscar-winning) performance, which gives her character considerable density and humanity in spite of her monstrous aspects. The economy of both script and direction is admirable—there's no wasted motion in sight—though the film's anthology of genre cliches ultimately undermines Bates's heroic efforts to make it something more. With Richard Farnsworth, Frances Sternhagen, and Lauren Bacall.
Jonathan Rosenbaum

Here (and above) is the trailer.

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