From the mind of Stephen King, the master of horror behind Carrie, The Shining, The Stand and It, comes the terrifying psychological thriller for which Kathy Bates (Dolores Claiborne) won the Academy Award for her iconic, bone-shattering performance. After his car crashes in the mountains during a blinding snowstorm, famous novelist Paul Sheldon (James Caan, Thief) is “rescued” from a car crash by Annie Wilkes (Bates), a fan obsessed with the main character in his series of novels. But when Wilkes reads his latest book—and learns he has killed her favorite character—she teaches Sheldon the real meaning of Misery. Injured and isolated far from help, Sheldon engages in a desperate battle of wits with Wilkes as she becomes ever more deranged and violent. Director Rob Reiner (The Princess Bride, A Few Good Men) and screenwriter William Goldman (Marathon Man, All the President’s Men) deliver a white-knuckle suspense tale that features Frances Sternhagen (The Mist), Richard Farnsworth (The Grey Fox) and the great Lauren Bacall (The Big Sleep).
As embodied by Alan Bates, Butley falls back on the surgically precise wit and savage eloquence that helped put him in his current circumstances in the first place. The blitzkrieg of vitriolic commentary with which Butley engages lovers, students, rivals, and allies, all with equal ferocity, becomes a glass bottom boat illuminating the churning depths of his bankrupted soul. Acclaimed playwright Harold Pinter, in what Time Magazine hailed as “a quite superior directorial debut,” turns author Simon Gray’s single-set, dialogue driven stage play into an irresistible dynamic visual experience that tracks Bates’ hilarious and fearless performance with cunning precision.
Bates and an expert supporting cast, including Oscar® winner Jessica Tandy (Driving Miss Daisy), joust with a sly, self-referencing wit and an unselfconscious exuberance that is breathtaking. With every verbal parry and valedictory flourish of wordplay, Butley’s life becomes more of an inescapable bear trap of thwarted ambition, clandestine affection, and squandered brilliance.
