in the business of Misery Chastain - Misery (1990)

or the tale of author Paul Sheldon's no good, COCKADOODIE BAD day

I'm your number one fan. There's nothing to worry about. You're going to be just fine. I will take good care of you. I'm your number one fan….

Spoilers, as per usual.

Misery (1990)

Directed by: Rob Reiner

Based on: Misery by Stephen King (1987)

Starring: James Caan, Kathy Bates, Frances Sternhagen Richard Farnsworth, Lauren Bacall (and Misery the Pig as herself, no seriously)

Running time: 107 minutes

Original release date: November 30th, 1990

the plot, in brief

Writer Paul Sheldon (James Caan - last seen on the Stack in Lady in a Cage), famous for his beloved historical romance series featuring the character Misery Chastain, has just completed the manuscript he hopes will kickstart his post-Misery career. Privately resentful of the (albeit very profitable) series that made his name, he’s aiming for a new path in more serious literary fiction. Upon leaving the hotel he was staying at, in Silver Creek, Colorado, a sudden blizzard causes Paul to crash his car over an embankment.

Seriously hurt and floating in and out of consciousness, he is rescued by an unseen figure. Two days later, he wakes up, bedridden with broken legs and a dislocated shoulder, in the remote farm home of Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates), a nurse who declares herself his number one fan. At first relieved that he’s still alive, Paul quickly begins to feel uncomfortable with the behavior of the woman who saved him… and realizes that he may still be in grave danger.

“you murdered my Misery!”

We haven’t done one of these in a while, so I hope you’re ready for the return of a good ol’ freeform jazz hands list recap/braindump because I have not slept properly in several days and my brain is fried!!!

*no seriously please forgive me, dear reader, if I’ve missed some details out, it’s been A Week (as evidenced by the fact that this issue is coming to you a day late mostly written in a blind panic).

we all have our traditions

When we meet Paul Sheldon, he’s contentedly taking the last page of his new manuscript (sans title at this point in time) out of his gigantic clunker of a typewriter. In pen, he writes THE END on the bottom of the page, before lighting a single cigarette (Chekov’s Cigarette, in a way), and pouring himself a glass of Dom Pérignon. I personally mark the completion of each issue of The Horror The Horror by staring blankly at my living room wall for ten to fifteen minutes; each to their own I guess.

snow good, ‘innit

Paul gets in the car and drives off, on the way to New York, with his new manuscript tucked into his lovely leather satchel because this is 1990 and cloud storage wasn’t a thing back then.

He merrily drives through the snow to this most excellent tune, which I would be remiss to not include in this issue.

Suggestion for a 2025 remake: have him drive to Shotgun by George Ezra.

Unfortunately for Paul, the snow - which up until this point had been nice and gentle - steadily worsens until he’s caught up in a blizzard. The music cuts out as the car slips and crashes over an embankment.

expository Lauren Bacall

As Paul, in the present, lies in the wreck of his car, badly hurt and bleeding, we get a flashback to the offices of his literary agent, Marcia Sindell. She is played - and we in turn are blessed- by the ever-glam Lauren Bacall, and through a conversation with her, we get three pieces of crucial information.

1. Paul is the author of a series of wildly successful and profitable Victorian romance novels starring a character named Misery Chastain.

2. He is working on his first post-Misery novel, a more serious piece of literary fiction.

3. Paul Sheldon, and I cannot stress this enough, fucking hates the Misery Chastain novels.

It’s a brief but very effectively employed flashback, setting us up with exactly the right amount of information for what follows.

Annie

In the present, Paul’s situation appears very dire indeed… until a figure clad in a snow suit materializes, and sets about rescuing him from the wreck of the car. The figure manages to get Paul out, and carries him to safety.

Some time later, Paul slowly fades back into consciousness, a voice rolling through his head. I’m your number one fan…

Coming to - two days post accident - he comes face to face with said fan: Annie Wilkes. Annie, a seemingly kind if slightly over-enthusiastic nurse, has brought Paul back to her remote farm and promises to care for him until the roads clear and the telephone lines get re-connected in the wake of the blizzard. She gives him the rundown of his injuries: Paul is currently bedridden, with two badly broken legs and a dislocated shoulder, essentially leaving him entirely at the mercy of this strange woman.

Still, Paul is relieved to be alive, and in the following days Annie keeps him fed and watered, and provides him with painkillers. He even agrees to Annie’s request to read his new manuscript.

Which is where the cracks start to set in…

“bitchly cow corn”

Because Annie is not a fan of the swearing in Paul’s new book. As she feeds him rather grim looking tomato soup, she starts jibbering and shaking as she lets off a string of… creative, not-quite cuss words, culminating in her spilling a dreck of soup on Paul’s blanket.

Paul? Rightly unnerved.

please provide me with an eight hour limited series on the adventures of Sheriff Buster and Deputy Virginia I feel it would heal me

Parallel with the story of Paul’s growing unease at Annie’s general… essence, we are introduced to the local sheriff, Buster (played by Richard Farnsworth, aka Alvin Straight from David Lynch’s The Straight Story) and his wife/deputy, Sex and the City’s Bunny McDougall Virginia (played by the formidable Frances Sternhagen). We first meet Buster as he’s on the phone with Marcia, who is calling because Paul at this point has been missing for a number of days.

Buster puts Paul’s name “on the system” (aka the post-it note wall behind his desk), seemingly uninterested in wanting to research further… except he’s not. Because rather than just brushing it off, Buster’s Spidey Senses are tingling, and he sets out with Virginia to do some good old fashioned detective work. The banter between Farnsworth and Sternhagen is so easy and natural, exactly the kind of lovingly exasperated tone two people who have been both married and working together for years would have. If I could go back in time and convince someone to run me a cozy prequel series starring these two, I absolutely would.

I’m going to keep my focus on Paul/Annie from here out but please know that Buster and Virginia are on the case and every scene they’re in is amazing.

Misery’s Child

By now, we’ve long since figured out that the roads are open and the phone lines are active. Annie, however, tries to style out that she’s just come back from town (BY CAR, which Paul can see from the window of the bedroom) with a fresh copy of Misery’s Child, which she at one point declares on a par with the Sistine Chapel as a form of art.

Just as an aside, I’m kind of not sure if it happens in this section of the film because I’m almost positive I hallucinated it, but there is one scene where she picks up Paul’s urine bottle and decides to continue the conversation they’re having while it just… swings around in her hand. I mean… sure.

Anyway, eventually Annie leaves Paul’s room to read the last two chapters of Misery’s Child, I’m sure nothing spectacular happens in those last two chapters, right?

Oh no, wait, Misery fucking dies in childbirth and the next time Annie returns to Paul’s room, she… well…

Annie has some constructive feedback hahaha just kidding

I can think of no better way to describe this scene than to just let the dialogue do the talking.

[Annie has just read Paul's latest novel]

Annie Wilkes: YOU! YOU DIRTY BIRD, HOW COULD YOU!

Paul Sheldon: What?

Annie Wilkes: She can't be dead, MISERY CHASTAIN CANNOT BE DEAD!

Paul Sheldon: Annie, in 1871, women often died during childbirth. But her SPIRIT is the important thing, and Misery's spirit is still alive.

Annie Wilkes: I DON'T WANT HER SPIRIT! I WANT HER! AND YOU MURDERED HER!

Paul Sheldon: No... I didn't.

Annie Wilkes: WHO DID?

Paul Sheldon: No one! She... she died! She just slipped away!

Annie Wilkes: SLIPPED AWAY! SLIPPED AWAY? SHE DIDN'T JUST SLIP AWAY! YOU DID IT! YOU DID IT! YOU DID IT! YOU MURDERED MY MISERY!

Allow me to get on my soapbox for one moment, dear reader, because I think this moment (and the aftermath) is the reason why Misery is, as a story, an excellent encapsulation of toxic fan worship (of note that Stephen King himself wrote the novel with the idea of Annie as a metaphor for cocaine - more on that in this excellent dissection from Jessica Avery for BookRiot).

It is not your Misery. She is not your character. She is not yours to shape or manipulate, nor are you the one who gets to decide whether she lives or dies. Yes, once the story has been published it is out of the writer’s hands, but it is still their creation, and their story that they’re telling you. Yes, you are most definitely allowed to have a deeper connection to the story, but you have no say in where the author takes the story. It is Paul’s choice to kill off Misery and move away from this series, not yours.

Anyway, before she storms off in a rage, Annie cruelly tells Paul the truth: no, she has not in fact informed anyone, including any medical assistance, of his whereabouts. Nobody knows he’s there, nobody is coming.

James Caan is brilliant throughout the film, rising to the challenge of playing a completely reactive, bedbound character, at the mercy of a mercurial captor. He is most brilliant in this scene, where he doesn’t need to speak a single word for you to know what he’s thinking, and what he’s thinking is “FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.”

Misery’s resurrection

The following day, Annie, in a mildly better mood, has come up with the genius two step plan of 1) burning the only copy of his current manuscript (even though Paul attempts to lie to her, saying that his agent and publisher already have copies, Annie’s human Wikipedia avant la letter knowledge of Paul comes in handy when she plainly calls out his lie telling him that she damn well knows he only ever does one copy of the manuscript because he said so on a chat show once) on a barbecue, with Paul watching helplessly as his manuscript becomes a pile of flaming goo, and 2) setting him up with a typewriter so he can write Misery back into existence.

Keeping in mind that Misery died in childbirth, in Victorian times, Paul’s first attempt (a reasonably credible miracle blood transfusion) gets roundly rebuffed by Annie, who knows exactly how she wants her girl to come back and would quite like Paul to interpret her thoughts EXACTLY TO THE LETTER.

Don’t ask me for the exact physics behind his eventual effort, it involves bee stings or some shit, idk.

Paul’s explorations around the house

Paul, having been granted a wheelchair to sit in while he writes (his first words? and I quote: fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck), waits until Annie is away before he tries to open the locked door with a bobby pin he found on the floor. Using a technique he researched for the Misery books, he bends the bobby pin into a makeshift key and, miraculously, manages to open the door.

In his explorations, he finds a number of framed photos of… Liberace, for some reason (too much of a good thing is wonderful, I guess) as well as a weird shrine to the Misery books with a signed photo of Paul as the centerpiece (it amuses me greatly that it’s clearly a press shot of younger James Caan).

He also discovers that the phone does not work (aka it appears to have quite literally had the bottom ripped out from it) and that the outer doors cannot be opened without a key. He starts stockpiling the strong painkillers Annie has been giving him and, one night, asks her to have dinner with him. When her back is turned, Paul pours the contents of the painkiller capsules into her wine, but Annie accidentally knocks over the glass, putting the kibosh on that plan.

On another outing, he discovers the harrowing truth about Annie through the medium of her scrapbook full of articles, which reveal that while she worked as a nurse, she was tried for a number of infant deaths (there’s also a hint that she may have used sinister motives to work her way through the ranks of the hospital). The trial collapsed, as the case lacked evidence.

Sat with that knowledge, Paul manages to make it back into the bed, believing Annie is none the wiser as to his excursions. But Annie is once again somehow playing 4D chess to Paul’s… idk, accidental Hungry Hungry Hippos, because not only does she know he left the room and had a look at her little book of crime memories, she knows because the little penguin figurine on her table ALWAYS FACES TO THE FRONT, which Paul didn’t know when he knocked it over and placed it the wrong way around!

And thus, we get to…

the hobbling

Even if you don’t know anything else about Misery, you will know about The Hobbling. It’s like the shower scene in Psycho, except unlike the shower scene in Psycho, the scene where Annie breaks both of Paul’s ankles with a sledgehammer is a short but razor sharp shock of violence. The camera cuts to Paul’s reaction just a little too late for you not to see his left foot get knocked bent over the side of a wooden block (OH MY GOD) but it cuts fast enough to allow for you to briefly think “fucking hell, has she KNOCKED HIS FOOT OFF??”

Annie’s deep breath, followed by “god, I love you” is the cherry on top of a particularly rancid cake, the true horror in this scene ultimately not emerging from the act, but the intention behind it. In this moment, Annie is in control of the situation, and

justice for Sheriff Buster

In the meanwhile, Buster has been doing some light reading: he’s worked his way through the Misery novels, and - having made note of a specific eye catching quote (“There is a judge higher than that of man. I will be judged by Him.”), the pieces of the puzzle start to fall into place when he spots an article about Annie’s trial in an old newspaper, with her being quoted as having said those exact words.

Buster makes the decision to drive to Annie’s farm, and Annie, in a panic, drugs Paul and ditches him in the basement. While Annie initially manages to successfully get rid of Buster, our man isn’t quite convinced and walks back into the house where he hears noise coming from the basement. He opens the door and comes face to face with Paul, uttering a “Mr. Sheldon?” before Annie brutally shoots a fucking hole though his stomach. It’s a truly gnarly moment (we’ll sweep under the rug the fact that Buster’s corpse seemingly vanishes into thin air in the next scene), and when Annie states her intention to take her and Paul’s life in a murder-suicide, things truly look bleak for our novelist.

Except…

Paul finally has a plan

Thinking quickly, Paul manages to convince Annie to let him finish the novel. While she fetches his wheelchair, he tucks a can of lighter fluid in his trousers. Later that night, Paul finishes the manuscript, and Annie is happy to oblige in his traditional one cigarette (because he gave up smoking, except for the one cigarette he allows himself when he finishes a new novel, as Annie Wikipedia informs us), bottle of Dom ritual.

When Annie returns from the kitchen, Paul has doused the manuscript in lighter fluid and, after taunting her, he sets the wretched thing on fire.

the execution of said plan

There then follows a fight that looks so incredibly painful I can’t bring myself to linger on it too much. It involves a typewriter, a pig-shaped doorstop, a bullet to the shoulder and the sweet, sweet relief of Paul finally getting the upper hand on Annie.

eighteen months later (aka no I don’t think asking Paul if he’d fancy writing a book about this highly traumatic experience is the way to go, ACTUALLY)

Cut to eighteen months later. Paul, now walking with a cane, meets with Marcia in a restaurant to discuss the success of his new novel. While he admits that the ordeal did give him back a bit of his passion for writing, he rejects the idea of ever writing about his time as Annie’s captive (and why the fuck would he, like, what kind of a question is that, MARCIA? I don’t care if you’re Lauren Bacall, his trauma is not for profit!).

Paul admits here that he still thinks about Annie once in a while, pondering whether anyone ever gets over something like that. In a final moment of terror, it looks like Annie is approaching them, knife in hand, disguised as a waitress. But in a blink, Annie is gone, and the actual waitress rolls the dessert cart up to their table.

Paul Sheldon: Gee, Marcia. If I didn't know you any better, I'd think you were suggesting I drudge up the worst horror of my life, just so we can make a few bucks.

Marcia Sindell: [as Paul sees a waitress approaching who looks like Annie Wilkes] I thought you were over it?

Paul Sheldon: I don't know if anyone could ever totally get over something like that. It's weird. Even though I know she's dead, I still think about her once in a while.

Waitress: [as the waitress is now table-side next to Paul, looking like a completely different woman] Excuse me. I don't mean to bother you, but are you Paul Sheldon?

Paul Sheldon: Yes.

Waitress: I just want to tell you I'm your number one fan.

Paul Sheldon: [uneasily] That's… very sweet of you.

The film ends on that note, suggesting that while Annie may be long dead, she will always be a lingering memory rooted deeply in Paul Sheldon’s core, perhaps haunting him most whenever he is reminded of the character that made him famous…

special bonus extra because I forgot about her until just now: Misery the pig

Annie at one point introduces Paul to her pet sow, Misery. Do with that what you will, I hope someone rescued her and gave her a good life.