# Misery (film)

Misery is a 1990 American psychological horror thriller film directed by Rob Reiner from a script by William Goldman, based on Stephen King's 1987 novel of the same name, The plot follows an author (James Caan) who is held captive by an obsessive fan (Kathy Bates) who forces him to rewrite the finale to his novel series. Frances Sternhagen, Richard Farnsworth, and Lauren Bacall also star.
The film was released in the United States on November 30, 1990, by Columbia Pictures. It received highly positive reviews and was a box office success. Bates' performance drew widespread praise from critics and won her the Academy Award for Best Actress at the 63rd Academy Awards, making Misery the only film based on a Stephen King novel to win an Oscar. King has stated that Misery is one of his top ten favorite film adaptations.

## Plot

Famed novelist Paul Sheldon writes Victorian romance novels featuring a female character named Misery Chastain. Though profitable, Paul privately despises the series and is now focused on writing more serious literature. Paul has just left the hotel in Silver Creek, Colorado where he has completed a manuscript he hopes will launch his post-Misery career. En route to New York City, Paul is caught in a blizzard and crashes his car over an embankment. Annie Wilkes finds him and brings him to her remote home.
Paul awakens to find himself bedridden with broken legs and a dislocated shoulder. Annie, a nurse who claims to be his "number one fan," says she will care for him until telephone lines are re-connected and the local roads cleared following the storm. Annie's somewhat disturbing behavior emerges and comes to a hilt when she reads the newest Misery novel and discovers Misery dies at the end. Flying into a rage, she reveals she never informed anyone about Paul and no one knows his whereabouts, effectively holding him prisoner.
Annie forces Paul to burn the only copy of his new manuscript. She buys typing paper and an antique typewriter, then orders him to bring Misery back in a new book. Paul reluctantly complies. He later finds a bobby pin and, while Annie is away, uses it to unlock the bedroom door. Exploring the house in a wheelchair, Paul discovers there is no working phone and the outer doors cannot be opened without a key. He begins stockpiling his painkillers and tries drugging Annie but she accidentally foils his plan. He finds a scrapbook filled with newspaper clippings revealing Annie was tried for several infant deaths at the hospital she worked; the case lacked evidence and the trial collapsed. Annie had quoted lines from his Misery novels during the trial.
Annie discovers that Paul escaped the room and breaks both his ankles with a sledgehammer to hobble him. Meanwhile, Sheriff Buster is investigating Paul's disappearance and follows clues to Annie's home. When he finds Paul drugged in the basement, Annie fatally shoots Buster with a shotgun; she intends to kill Paul in a murder-suicide, but he persuades her to let him finish the novel. While she fetches the wheelchair, he hides a can of lighter fluid inside his pants.
Paul finishes the novel and sends Annie to the kitchen for the celebratory champagne. He then douses the manuscript with the lighter fluid. When Annie returns, Paul holds up the crucial final pages and sets them on fire. Dropping the fiery bundle onto the manuscript, he taunts Annie that she will never know Misery's fate. As an enraged Annie falls to the floor trying to douse the fire, Paul hits her head with the typewriter. They engage in a violent struggle, with Paul suffering a gunshot wound to his shoulder and Annie briefly being knocked out. The struggle continues and then ends when Paul bashes Annie's head with a cast iron doorstop, finally killing her.
Eighteen months later, Paul, now using a walking cane, meets with Marcia Sindell, his literary agent, at a New York City restaurant. They discuss his first post-Misery novel, which has advanced critical acclaim and is expected to be a best seller. Paul admits that his ordeal helped revive his passion for writing. Sindell asks him to consider a nonfiction book about his experience, but Paul—who suffers psychological trauma from the experience—declines the suggestion.

## Cast

* 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 Patrol Colonel Sherman Douglas. Director Rob Reiner also makes an uncredited appearance as a helicopter pilot.

## Production
### Development

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.
In the 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.

### Casting

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. Warren Beatty was interested in the role, wanting to turn him into a less passive character, 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." Anjelica Huston and Bette Midler were both offered the role of Annie Wilkes, but both of them turned it down. Midler would later say that she deeply regretted this decision. According to Reiner, it was Goldman who suggested that Wilkes should be played by Kathy Bates, a stage actress who was effectively unknown to film audiences.

### Filming

Principal photography began in February 1990. Exterior scenes set in the town of Silver Creek were shot in Genoa, Nevada, while interiors were filmed at Hollywood Center Studios in Los Angeles.

## Music

The film's score was composed by Marc Shaiman. 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.

## Reception
### Box office

Misery grossed $10,076,834 on its opening weekend, finishing second at the box office behind Home Alone. It eventually finished with $61 million domestically.

### Critical response

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Misery has an approval rating of 91% based on 74 reviews, with an average rating of 7.60/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "Elevated by standout performances from James Caan and Kathy Bates, this taut and frightening film is one of the best Stephen King adaptations to date." At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating to reviews, the film has a score of 75 out of 100, based on 23 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a rating of three stars out of four, stating that "it is a good story, a natural, and it grabs us." Variety called it "a very obvious and very commercial gothic thriller, a functional adaptation of the Stephen King bestseller." Derek Malcolm of The Guardian gave it a positive review, writing that it "plays enough tricks on us so that we don't ever treat anything quite seriously and Goldman's script has enough good lines and situations to keep one interested in exactly what is coming next", and praised the cast, especially Bates, writing that her "demented devotee in Misery is inspired casting." Vincent Canby of The New York Times praised Kathy Bates' performance, calling it "a genuinely funny performance as the mad Annie, as gaudily written in Mr. Goldman's screenplay as it is in Mr. King's novel."
King himself has stated that Misery is one of his top ten favorite film adaptations, in his 2009 collection Stephen King Goes to the Movies. In his 2000 memoir called On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, King references the movie adaptation of the book, saying:
   In the early 1980s, my wife and I went to London on a combined business/pleasure trip. I fell asleep on the plane and had a dream about a popular writer (it may or may not have been me, but it sure to God wasn't James Caan)...
In 2003, Annie Wilkes was ranked #17 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains list. The "hobbling" scene in the film, in which Annie breaks Paul's ankles with a sledgehammer, was ranked #12 on Bravo's 2004 program The 100 Scariest Movie Moments. In 2009, Chris Eggertsen of Bloody Disgusting ranked Misery fourth place in his list of "10 Claustrophobic Horror Films".
In 2014, WhatCulture ranked Kathy Bates' role first in top "10 Most Convincing Movie Psychopath Performances", Taste of Cinema ranked the film 7th among the "30 Great Psychopath Movies That Are Worth Your Time", and GamesRadar+ named Annie one of the "50 Creepiest Movie Psychopaths.

### Accolades

| Award | Category | Nominee(s) | Result |
| Academy Awards | Best Actress | Kathy Bates | Won |
| Chicago Film Critics Association Awards | Best Actress | Kathy Bates | Won |
| Chicago Film Critics Association Awards | Most Promising Actress | Kathy Bates | Nominated |
| Dallas–Fort Worth Film Critics Association Awards | Best Actress | Kathy Bates | Won |
| Golden Globe Awards | Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama | Kathy Bates | Won |
| New York Film Critics Circle Awards | Best Actress | Kathy Bates | Nominated |
| Saturn Awards | Best Horror Film | Best Horror Film | Nominated |
| Saturn Awards | Best Actor | James Caan | Nominated |
| Saturn Awards | Best Actress | Kathy Bates | Nominated |
| Saturn Awards | Best Supporting Actress | Frances Sternhagen | Nominated |
| Saturn Awards | Best Writing | William Goldman | Nominated |
| USC Scripter Awards | USC Scripter Awards | William Goldman (screenwriter); Stephen King (author) | Nominated |

### Home media

Nelson Entertainment and its parent company, New Line Home Video, first released Misery on VHS on July 11, 1991, and New Line re-released it in 1992, after Nelson went bankrupt. The film was later re-released on VHS again by PolyGram Video and on DVD on December 22, 1998 by MGM Home Entertainment. A 25th anniversary edition DVD and Blu-ray was released on September 8, 2015 by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment and MGM Home Entertainment. Currently, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment (Castle Rock Entertainment's sister company) re-issued home video rights under the license from MGM. The Shout! Factory released a collector's edition Blu-ray under their Scream Factory label on November 28, 2017. A 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray was released through Kino Lorber on October 12, 2021.