The story:
Paul Sheldon (James Caan) is a very famous writer, he wrote a series of books based on the character of Misery, but is fed up with her and intends to kill her in his next book. He tells his publisher (Lauren Bacall) that he stopped being a writer when he started writing Misery... which is rather annoying considering that Misery gave him money and fame. There is nothing shameful in writing romantic novels, and besides nothing stopped him from writing something else between one Misery book and the next one!
He already wrote Misery’s death, and the book is about to come out soon. Now he wants to write more ‘serious’ books, and as always he goes to his secluded place in Colorado (always the same hotel).
Finished the new book, he starts driving back, apparently undisturbed by all the snow around and in front of him! No surprise he goes off the road in what might be a fatal accident, but a car behind him stops. Annie (Kathy Bates) is a strong nurse; she takes him out of the car and drives him to her house. She reveals to him that she’s his number one fan, and she was following him knowing his routine very well. Paul’s editor calls the sheriff (Richard Farnsworth), worried because she didn’t hear from him, but there’s so much snow around that Paul’s car is totally hidden, and he has no way of finding him.
Annie takes care of Paul, tells him how much she loves Misery, and as always is the first to buy his new book as soon as it’s available in stores. As a thank you for helping him, he also lets her read his new book, still in his bag.
Annie gets very, very upset when she reads that Misery dies giving birth and is buried; she becomes furious with him, but then calms down, reaching the decision that he simply has to bring Misery back. She burns the new manuscripts in front of him, even has him light the fire, because she says it’s too filthy, and then she buys a typewriter and some paper so he can write a new book. She’s a good reader too, she won’t accept anything done the wrong way, Misery was dead and buried in the last book so he must move on from there. Right! :-p
He’s been badly hurt in the accident, but Annie finds excuses to keep him in the house instead of bringing him to a hospital. After reading the new book though she comes clean and tells him that nobody knows where he is, and locks him into the room with the bed and the typewriter. Time passes, he finds a way that Annie agrees with, and she reads the story as he writes it.
I don’t know if Annie was more scary when she was furious or when she was all sweet, saying how much she loves the new Misery book, how well he writes, how big a fan she is...
The snow is slowly melting, and the sheriff finds Paul’s car and realizes that someone helped him out of the car.
Realizing that she’s dangerous, he secretly saves up his painkillers, and then he puts them in her wine when they’re supposed to celebrate.. I think that he completed his book, but I’m not sure. Anyway, she spills the wine and his plan fails. Paul looks around the house when she’s out shopping, using the wheelchair where she sits him every morning so he can write at the table, and finds a scrapbook, discovering that she was once involved in the deaths of at least two babies in the hospital where she worked, but there were no proof against her.
Annie understands that he’s been moving around the house and gets angry; she drugs him, ties him up to the bed, and then she breaks both his legs! Aaaargh.
The sheriff doesn’t forget about it; he finds out that Annie used words from the Misery books at her trial, that she always bought Paul’s books, and that lately she also bought a lot of paper, so he goes to her house to take a look. Of course she lies to him, she always has a good answer for everything, and the sheriff is about to go away because he has no reasons to stay in her house any longer, when he hears Paul shouting. The sheriff finds him in the basement, but then Annie shoots him in the back with a rifle! Noo :’(
She tells Paul that the next two bullets are for the two of them, and he tries to buy some more time agreeing with her. He tells her that she’s right, that he loves her too, but that they need to finish the book first in order to give Misery back to the world. Back in his room, he finishes the book and then asks her for a cigarette and a glass of champagne, and since she knows that to be his usual ritual she agrees, she’s even touched when he says they’ll need two glasses this time.
When she comes back with the matches, he sets the book on fire, with some fuel that he had hidden in his pants, and Annie throws herself on the book to save it and Paul hits her with the typewriter.
She’s of course not dead yet: they fight furiously for a while, until finally he manages to kill her.
We don’t know exactly what happens next, how he comes back to the world, but of course we can imagine that someone would at least come looking for the sheriff, and he had been asking around about Annie, so... he makes it somehow. We see him with his publisher: he wrote a new book about his dreadful experience with Annie, and still sees her face around sometimes..
ITA Misery non deve morire
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