The 1990 adaptation of Stephen King’s classic novel won Kathy Bates a well-deserved Oscar, but don’t sleep on Caan’s brilliant performance.
James Caan was not the first role player consider for the part of Paul Sheldon , the layer - devolve on romance novelist who gets deface by Kathy Bates ’s crack - fan nurse Annie Wilkes inMisery . In his showbiz memoirWhich Lie Did I Tell ? , the screenwriter William Goldman , who adapt Stephen King ’s grisly best seller for manager Rob Reiner in 1990 , describes the hunt for the perfect Sheldon this agency : " No one would wreak the part . " William Hurt , Kevin Kline , Michael Douglas , Harrison Ford , Dustin Hoffman , Robert De Niro , Al Pacino , Richard Dreyfuss , Gene Hackman , and Robert Redford all passed . The notoriously fickle Warren Beatty issue forth close , but he hadDick Tracyon his plateful . enrol Caan , the Oscar - nominated star ofThe Godfather , Rollerball , andThief , whodied Wednesdayat the age of 82 .
For a number of reasonableness , Caan was not the intuitive pick for the role . There were prominent gens in the mix , and the character , a recent - career self - identifying hack with unexplored literary aspiration , was n’t necessarily a lifelike fit for an actor best known for playing gangster and criminals . allot to Goldman , the curly - haired star , who had battled a drug trouble and stepped away from Hollywood for several age in the ' eighty , secernate Reiner he was unclouded and that he would " micturate in a bottleful every Clarence Shepard Day Jr. " to turn up it if he had to . He wanted the role . expect back , the often underrated performance is essential to realise the complex double bind of Caan ’s endlessly fascinating butch image .
Miseryis a tortured , twisted lovemaking story : Annie ’s obsession with Paul ’s creations labor her to commit fell , monstrous human action of violence , but she is not merely torturing her favorite writer for sportswoman . She wants something from him — another account book in her belovedMiseryseries — and she will apply every method at her disposal to get it . likewise , Paul is playing a delicate dancing with what we would now call a " toxic " buff . There ’s a lack of self-importance necessitate for Caan ’s performance , which might be part of why so many other prominent stars turned it down . ( Bates gain ground a Best Actress Oscar for her role , but Caan was not appoint and it ’s still easy tofind arguments for why he was miscast . ) As Sheldon , who get in a car accident on a drive from Colorado to New York and wakes up in a bed in Wilkes ’s secluded home , Caan is tasked with play weak , misfortunate , and servile . There ’s a rummy tenderness and colored humor that drives the movie , an interplay between Caan and Bates that makes the film work .
Kathy Bates and James Caan in ‘Misery’|Photo by Columbia Pictures/Getty Images
That vulnerability , a willingness to crusade against and always tweak the limits of his own hard - guy screen bearing , was always part of Caan ’s gruff prayer : Before appear inThe Godfather , he pull in an Emmy nomination for take on Chicago Bears halfback Brian Piccolo in 1970’sBrian ’s Song , one of the essential male weepies of its era . Thief , arguably his safe carrying out , finds Caan embody film maker Michael Mann ’s code - following professional criminal with an almost otherworldly cool and groovy . But he ’s more than an pilot or a mythical bod . The part of Frank also demands Caan bestow a sense of lived history to line likethe heartbreaking pleahe makes to a worker at an acceptation federal agency : " I was state - raised , and this is a dead place . "
Like Robert Mitchum or Warren Oates before him , Caan work an often wry heaviness to his office . There was sadness , passion , and bemusement . He could bemock himself , as he did brightly in former - vocation gems likeElforBottle Rocket . In recent years , hisTwitter presence , with its steady stream of retrospective photos and his " End of tweet " catch phrase , was one of the rare societal media rebrandings that felt authentically fun and playful instead of cloying and duteous . That he could deliver a tactual sensation of authenticity in such a hokey mass medium should n’t have been surprising : That was his talent .
And make no misunderstanding : Misery , with its bursts of brutality and its ego - conscious misogyny , has more than a spot of schlock to it . In playing the helplessness of the other sections and the revengeful gleefulness of the coda , Caan amply commits to the uglier aspect of the film ’s thrill - ride structure . He nails Paul ’s sense of superiority and entitlement ; he make his humbling feel gain and unleashes the wrath of Caan with almost surgical preciseness . At time , particularly in the more tuned - up 2d half , it feel like Caan and Bates have a stronger grasp on the material than even Reiner does . Like many of the best thrillers , there ’s a common sense that the flick is about to go off the rails from a plot and tone perspective . That ’s part of where the tautness comes from .
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Still , it ’s clean from understand Goldman ’s Good Book that everyone involved with the output understood Caan ’s unique endowment . " One particular thing Caan brought to the party is that he is a very strong-arm guy rope , he is like a shark , he has to keep moving , he can not be still in a room , " the film writer wrote . That frenzied quality made him the ideal subject for Annie ’s workout in sadism and King ’s self - mocking portrayal of the creative person as research lab puke . If you ’re depend for a room to remember Caan , watchingMiseryis the pure direction to see the shark in action .
