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Misery Movie Review

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Actors: James Caan, Kathy Bates, Richard Farnsworth

Review Summary and Plot Commentary about Misery

A famous writer gets in a car accident on a snowy mountain road. He's found by a woman who happens to be a huge fan. She takes him back to her house to take care of him.
He has a broken arm and some superficial injuries, but the woman nurses him back to health.
Once healthy, he's ready to leave, but she doesn't want him to.
He wakes one morning to find himself tied to the bed as the woman's prisoner. He escapes once, but she catches him. To keep him from escaping again she breaks his ankles with a sledgehammer.
Now confined to a wheelchair, she keeps him drugged.
She forces him to write another book about her favorite character from one of his other books.
Every chance he gets, he works out, trying to get stronger.
One night, when the woman gets close enough, he smashes her head with a typewriter, killing her. He's then able to escape.
He goes on to write a best-selling book about his terrifying experience.
--BRANDON SWENSON, Resident Scholar

A wonderful movie by Rob Reiner with a screenplay by William Goldman based on Stephen King's novel earning Kathy Bates an Oscar for best actress (and she well deserves it). This movie is about Paul Sheldon (Caan), who is a writer of a famous romance novel series. He is up in the mountains and has decided that he is going to stop the series by killing off the main character, Misery. On his way down, he gets into a car wreck. He is rescued by Annie Wilkes (Bates) an ex-nurse who starts to nurse him back to health. When she finds out who he is, she becomes extremly excited as she is his biggest fan. We soon find out that this woman is absolutly crazy when she finds the last novel in the "Misery" series and finds that the character dies. She goes insane and decides to make Paul write another book in the series saying that she doesn't die by keeping him at her house and slowing nursing him.

Crested sapwood supportable noradrenaline runout.

--Michael Gookin, Resident Scholar

Analysis of Misery

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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot

Composition of Movie
Actual chase scenes or violence - 35%
Planning/preparing, gather info, debate puzzles/motives - 25%
Feelings, relationships, character bio/development - 40%

Time/Era of Movie: - 1980's-1999
Crime & Police Story? Yes
Crime story: - criminal/victim falls in love with victim/criminal - criminal kidnappers
Horror film? Yes
Horror Plotlets: - mad guy with knife likes to slice
Criminal enemy is... - crazed boy/girlfriend/spouse

Main Character
Identity: - Male
Profession/status: - writer
Age: - 40's-50's
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events? Yes
Hair color? - brunette (Brown) - red
Hair style - short/standard straight (man)
Body type - average (man)
Unclothed? - Chest
Events of movie makes character more... - tougher
Ethnicity/Nationality - White (American)
How sensitive is this character? - middling sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor - Cynical sense of humor
Intelligence - Average intelligence - Smarter than most other characters
Physique - average physique

Secondary Main Character
Identity: - Female
Hair color - brunette (Brown)
Hair style - (woman) medium/shoulderlgn wavy
Body type - average (woman)
How much in movie? - 90%-100%
Ethnicity/Nationality - White (American)

Main Adversary
Identity: - Female
Age: - 40's-50's
Profession/status: - unemployed
Eccentric: Yes - wild - eccentric - mentally ill - emotionally unstable - obsessed
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in: - 90%-100%
Specific kind of enemies? - captors
Hair color - brunette (Brown)
Hair type - (woman) medium/shoulderlgn straight - (woman) medium/shoulderlgn wavey
Body type - fat (woman) - average (woman)
Ethnicity/Nationality - White (American)
Intelligence - Average intelligence
Physique - average physique
Sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor
How sensitive is this character? - mean, arrogant

Setting
United States Yes
The US: - Midwest
Small town? Yes
Small town people: - nice, like Andy/Opie/Aunt Bee - dumb rednecks, like Gomer Pyle

Style
Accounts of torture and death? - non-gory references to death/punishment - gory visuals of torture
Movie makes you feel... - challenged
How many deaths in film? - 2
Kind of violence: - hand to hand - knives
Unusual forms of death - blunt clubbing (like seals)
Any profanity? - Occasional swearing - A lot of foul language
Is this movie based on a - book

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