Misery and Misery

Misery 1990 film directed by Rob Reiner based on the novel by Stephen King Misery 1987.

Intro
The film Misery is highly consisted one of the best movie adaptations based on a book. Great story with great actors and very entertaining. If you enjoy stories where the characters are in a  claustrophobia environment I highly recommend this one, book or movie. Due to the popularity of this novel/film I will not get into great details about the story, but only point out some items one might not have thought about in the film.

Plot
Famous writer Paul Sheldon finishing writing his latest novel plans to deliver it right away. On the road he gets into an accident that leaves him unconscious. He wakes up in a room to discover his legs are damage making him unable to walk. His savior is Annie Wilkes, a retire nurse who happens to be his number one fan. Paul soon realize he's not going anywhere. Upon learning the death of her favorite character from his novel Misery Chastain, Annie demonstrates how dangerous she can be. Forcing him to burn his new book Annie buys Paul a typewriter making him write another Misery novel in her honor. After many attempts to escape Annie decides the only way to make sure Paul stays put is by dismembering him. Having had enough Paul makes one last desperate attempt for freedom even if it cost him his life.

Similarities
There are many similarities, so I'll just point out a few I believe where essential of having made the film succeed.

Location
To start off the location of the story does take place in Colorado. It was mentioned in the novel to take place in Sidewinder, Colorado where Annie lives (a fictional place mentioned also in other King's stories). Although the film version stated it's located at Silver Creek, Colorado (non-fiction), but that's not a problem because it doesn't ruin the plot or anything. We just need to know that Paul stayed at a place where snow is common. A hardcore fan would probably disagree, if you prefer the exact details from the book. I could let this one go. 

The Car
I liked the fact that Rob used the novel's version of Paul's car the old 74 Camaro. It's important to the plot because it provided Paul with hope that the police will find the car at the location he crashed. If they find the car, but not his body they'll continue their search. Maybe they'll assume somebody took him. Hopefully they'll do their research, drive by down to Annie's house to question her due to her trail history. 

Annie and Kathy
Praise Rob Reiner for selecting Kathy Bates to play Annie Wilkes because she nailed it! Short-tempered, control freak, psycho yet caring. One of the greatest villain in movie history no doubt.

Paul wakes up to see his number 1 fan

Annie's character is a little complex, but I'll give it a go. The novel explains more about her background, but it's still uncertain if she grew up as a psychological harm child with daddy issues (stated she possibly murdered her own father) or she has the same ideology as her mother, who she seems to idealize keeping a portrait of her in her own living room. Whatever the cause of her insanity actress Kathy Bates succeeded in bringing the character to life.

We do however read Paul's point of view of Annie's thoughts. He shown to have a vivid imagination, so he's able to come up with ideas of what makes Annie tick and he does this by thinking like her.

"In Annie's view all the people in the world were divided into three groups: brats, poor poor things . . . and Annie" (Misery, Stephen King).

I do have to say that Annie gets quickly irritated with Paul more in the book than in the film. She's more impatient, aggressive, and sensitive. Paul nearly had to always be careful how his sentence came out when he spoked to Annie. Her film counterpart at least shown us that she can take a joke such as the scene where Paul flips her off.

Memory Lane
Annie does keep a memoir and I'm very glad the film shows this. We learned that during her years working as a nurse, Annie picked up the habit of murdering the ills and injured, then moving off to the next hospital. During that time nobody suspected the deaths as unusual or thought to point the finger at Annie at first. She does stop killing for awhile after her marriage, but gets right back into the game after the divorce. She's finally put on trail after the deaths of 8 infants, receiving the nickname the Dragon Lady. She managed to be presume innocent, returns as a nurse killing more people, then moves to Sidewinder/Silver Creek to live alone.

Humor
The Stephen King's Novel is known to have humor in it. There's one funny scene where Annie tears a rat apart, then abandoned Paul to go to her laughing place leaving Paul to worry about starvation. He gets a crazy idea that he could eat the rat, then starts laughing. It's gruesome, but humorous at the same time. I believe the film does provide some humor scenes as well. 

Typewriter
Not just a typewriter, but a typewriter missing the 'N'. It's not much important to the story, but it gave good tribute to it. In the book the typewriter was treated as an character. 

Cockadoodie Car
One of my favorite scenes is the part when Annie makes Paul rewrite the intro of Misery's Return (the novel she forces him to write) because he wasn't being fair. He doesn't understand, so Annie uses Rocket Man a childhood favorite actor as an example. In this scene actress Katy uses almost the exact same lines as in the novel. 

"He didn't get out of the cockadoodie car!" (Misery, Stephen King).

It was a bit more dramatic in the novel, but the film gets to the point which works.

Difference
Minor difference not much. Only major difference are the characters added to the film that didn't have much of a big roll in the book.

The Metting
In the film Paul and Annie first introduction slightly differs from the novel. Annie introduces herself as his number one fan and savior immediately in both versions. However book version Paul is in agonized pain from his accident so he wines a lot, though he quickly realize he's Annie's prisoner

Film version Paul goes though the early days out of his coma feeling safe with Annie taking care of him. We get to know Annie as a sweet caring nurse who saved Paul's life. There's no paranoia that's he's in danger. Which is why we are shock when we see our first impression that she's psycho when she quickly turns berserk during a disagreement about Pual's latest book (Fast Cars). We really see her nasty side when Annie discovers fictional character Misery been killed off both novel and film version. Also in the film the discovering of Misery's death is also the scene where she reveals to Paul that he's not going anywhere, PERIOD!

Annie gets upset with Paul over spilled soup

Paul's writing place
Paul stayed at the Boulderado Hotel in Boulder, Colorado, yet the film stated he stayed at the Silver Creek Lodge to write his novel.

Buster
The old sheriff is one of the major characters in the film, but not in the novel. Although there's a scene where Annie gets a visit from an old person which Paul nicknamed Mr Rancho Grande. There's a brief description about him that might have been the source of creating Buster.

"He looked sixty-five but might be eighty; he might be the senior partner of a law firm or the semi-retired patriarch of a construction company, but was more likely a rancher or a realtor" (Misery, Stephen King).

Buster is a likable characters and he shown his importance of the story by providing the audience with hope that he'll find Paul. 

Misery Chastise
We receive way more information about Misery the novel in the book version. We hardly know much about the character in the film except when Annie explains to Paul about certain chapters (in great details). Well it's basically about a young beautiful Misery Chastise along with her lover Ian and friend Geoffrey that embark on dangerous adventures together. It's a romance love triangle action/drama novel taken place around the 1800's era. It's popularity is due to its women readers.

Unlike the film version, we get to read Paul's perspective of his character. He's shown to have a love/hatred for Misery. In the film, we do see a brief scene at the beginning where he's having a meeting with his agent discussing why de decided to kill off Misery.

Movie quote: I never meant it to become my life. If I haven't gotten ride of her now I would have ended writing her forever.

I suppose it some up his thoughts of Misery.

What's really interesting about Misery the novel is that we the readers get a novel within a novel. We're not only centering around Paul's story, but as well as Misery's.

The hoppling
The famous scene that made audiences cringe all over the world is actually quite different from King's original hoppling scene from his book. In the book Annie's weapon of choice wasn't a sledgehammer, but an axe to cut off Paul's left foot. It's more bloody and cruel. She also later on cuts off one of his thumbs, but that doesn't happen in the film. Rob Reiner had change the idea of dismembering Paul's foot to just breaking it because he wanted to give the audience a sense of victory for Paul towards the end. Stephen King also tried to give us a sense of victory by stating that Paul's foot was infected to begin with, so it was going to be removed anyways. Basically Annie did him a favor.

Conclusion
There are many other things I left out such as Paul the idea of freedom is Africa, Annie and her neighbors the Roydmans, and much more. If you enjoyed the movie, then you'll enjoy the book.