One of the trickiest things about adapting Stephen King is how much of his work deals with the mind. I know that many of the uninitiated in his work may assume that King’s novels are just monster mashes, packed to the gills with gore and horror. And, well, yeah. But King’s interest has always been less in the mechanics of ghouls and ghosts than in the way rational, everyday people respond to these mutations, and the ways they persevere or break through trauma.
But those pages and pages of interior monologues don’t really fly in a visual medium, and so many a filmmaker has resorted to putting the emphasis on the monsters and the mayhem, which is a hit or miss proposition. For example, Rob Reiner and William Goldman opted to turn Misery into a Hitchcockian locked room thriller, which works like gangbusters but means that the film loses the deeply felt meditation on creativity and sanity that existed within King’s tome.
With Gerald’s Game, available from Netflix on September 29, Mike Flanagan cracked what so many others have failed at, and the result is a film with as much emotional and psychological depth as it is viscerally terrifying.
Jessie (Carla Gugino) and Gerald (Bruce Greenwood) are a married couple going through a difficult time in their marriage, the spark seeming having gone out. The pair attempt to rekindle some of the old excitement with a weekend at their remote cabin, Jessie agreeing to try something…different, this time. They’ve barely unpacked before Gerald has popped a Viagra and pulled out a pair of handcuffs. Jessie is bound to the bed, a proposition that rapidly becomes a problem when Gerald drops dead of a heart attack.
The rest of the film plays out as Jessie’ desperate attempt to survive and escape her predicament, having to accomplish things like retrieving water despite being handcuffed to the bed. But the film does one better than that, digs deeper than that, digging into Jessie’ innermost fears and demons even as she battles for her life.
None of this works without Carla Gugino’s performance, and holy shit you guys. Gugino has always been a fearless performer, and she has never been given such a showcase, nor risen to such incredible heights. There’s no nudity in the film, but Gugino bares her soul to the camera, playing things so raw and so real that it almost becomes too much. She is never less than riveting, and in a world where Netflix and/or genre films were serious awards contenders, we would be talking about her upcoming Oscar nomination.
Greenwood is also aces, appearing throughout the post-death scenes as a mental conjuring of Jessie, teasing and tormenting her while ripping open old mental wounds. Greenwood is an innately watchable presence, and here his gentle voice is akin to Lucifer’s own lulling taunt. I have not read this book, but much of what Gerald says in the film flows with the sort of rhythm that King has been writing for 40-something years. In lesser hands, trying to adapt that direct his come across as stilted and hilariously fake, but Greenwood’s whisper makes what could be clunky deeply effective instead.
(Sidenote: Greenwood also spits out a Dark Tower reference that almost made me spontaneously combust in my seat.)
Acting this committed demands a filmmaker to answer in kind, and Flanagan is working overtime to equal what his lead duo are doing. I did not care for Flanagan’s Oculus (strong craft, but too-clever by half) but he’s grown by leaps and bounds since that film. Gerald’s Game is an intimate film, but it never feels stagebound or small. Flanagan also does terrific work keeping what could be a static story movie, building sequences around minor goals and challenges that gradually accumulate. Flanagan handles all this with aplomb, laying out details early and paying them off in ways that are surprising and satisfying in equal measure.
And, maybe most importantly, Flanagan knows when to back the hell up and just let Gugino own the entire frame. She is his best special effect, and the director clearly knows and appreciates this.
If Gerald’s Game has a stumbling point, it’s with a third act that doesn’t quite know when to dismount. Again, I have not read this book, but the way in which the film feels the need to cross every “t” and dot every “i” feels like classic King, a writer who just can’t help but keep writing. It’s not bad or anything, but Gerald’s Game builds to a truly astonishing punchline, one that had my entire audience on their feet screaming in shock and animal-panic, but the movie dilutes it by continuing to spin its wheels for a while afterwards.
Even with that hiccup, Gerald’s Game is a tremendous achievement. Any and all horror fans need to watch this, as Gerald’s Game has already skyrocketed up the ranks to be one of my favorite Stephen King adaptations. This one is the real deal, folks.