Thuddingly directed by Rob Reiner (Annie’s getting a little crazy? Time for another extreme close-up!), Misery fails to evoke the sort of insidiousness you might expect from a Stephen King adaptation. And what laughs there are come perilously close to camp. But considering this came out in 1990, it was a prescient prediction of the way fanboy culture would come to influence the creative process (with the wry touch that it centers on a fangirl). When Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates) imprisons her favorite author (James Caan) and forces him to write a new installment in the historical romance series she adores―according to her specifications―she’s the equivalent of every superfan who worships or derides a piece of pop culture depending only on how well it matches the piece of fan fiction that exists in their head. (Studios now tie themselves up in knots trying to serve such personal whims.) Bates won an Oscar and she is a formidable presence, especially considering Reiner’s camera tries to do much of the acting for her.
