Shelley Duvall Makes This Work: No Shelley, No Shining

Rating: 9/10 (7 September 2017)

Jack Nicholson hamming it up (here's Johnny!) and absurd tidal waves of cranberry juice pouring out of elevators... are neither here nor there. Danny Lloyd has aged badly and one could wish for a more savvy child actor, Lord knows there are thousands. But it is Shelley Duvall who spent about a year of her life sobbing, shaking, screaming and her terribly frail 'raggedy Anne' body frozen in helplessness.... I could go on but you Shining fans just watch the movie and see how Shelly makes herself the focus for all our fears. She had to do this take after take after take for a YEAR for Kubrick till she thought she would never be herself again. It was beyond BRUTAL.
When the movie came out she was stunned that none of the reviews mentioned her exhausting and brilliant and very physical acting in this film. She was so good at what she did that they treated her as though she were some marvelous 'scream machine' or special effect.
Watch her in the scene with the great Anne Jackson as a pediatrician come to treat Danny - see how she the two interact and how Duvall, with her big sad eyes, gives a glimpse into a dark side of the marriage.
I raise my glass of cranberry juice to Shelley! What a performance!