Rob Reiner’s “Distress” (1990) has turn out to be one of many director’s most well-known and continuously quoted movies, which is ironic, as Reiner principally made comedies as much as that time.
“I’m your primary fan.”
Is there anybody alive who doesn’t know the origin of that quote? Whereas many have uttered that phrase, it’s protected to say that few have meant it as a lot as Annie Wilkes, in declaring her love for Paul Sheldon, her favourite author and captive.
In Stephen King’s 1987 novel, “Distress,” Wilkes, a reclusive former nurse, is retaining her favourite author holed up in her cabin. Their relationship turns from devoted fan/visitor to brutal punisher/captive, as she forces him to jot down a blatantly business novel…or else. Reiner’s movie of King’s “Distress,” tailored by William Goldman for the display screen, stays an inventive excessive level for everybody concerned.
Reiner’s sole thriller is his finest movie, a cleverly constructed seat gripper that was an actual shock coming from him. At this level in his profession, Reiner had made “That is Spinal Faucet” (1984), “The Certain Factor” (1985), “Stand by Me” (1986), “The Princess Bride” (1987) and “When Harry Met Sally…” (1989), all nice movies, none of them remotely like the opposite.
The one connective thread they share is Reiner’s constant directorial flexibility, wherein he was keen to adapt to the calls for and tone of the fabric.
Working with Goldman’s sensible, wealthy screenplay and Barry Sonnenfeld’s versatile, acrobatic cinematography, Reiner manages to set the story principally in a single room, which alternates between showing both invitingly heat or a dreaded location for a wake.
The forged is one other important purpose for the movie’s success. James Caan was nobody’s first choose for a romance novelist, and the against-type casting works. Caan’s Paul Sheldon is admittedly writing the Distress Chastain novels as an inventive compromise and a way for income, not crucial acclaim.
Caan’s face conveys the lengthy, unhappy, sell-out that Sheldon has been enduring and the way the creation of his newest, Distress-free novel is a purpose to really feel alive once more.
Kathy Bates was the movie’s greatest discovery, as the previous stage star and someday character actress was assigned a job conceived by King as older. From her first second on digicam, Bates is right as Annie Wilkes, making the character’s brute power, folksy demeanor, and satisfaction a skinny masks of sanity that’s all the time about to interrupt.
Her outbursts turn out to be greater and scarier because the movie progresses, and Bates makes Wilkes a hypnotic tour de power.
I share a movie buff’s enthusiasm for “The Shawshank Redemption” (1994), “The Shining” (1980), “The Useless Zone” (1983), “Pet Sematary” (each variations), “The Mist” (2007), “Dolores Claiborne” (1995), “Cat’s Eye” (1985), “The Inexperienced Mile’ (1999), “1408” (2007) and Reiner’s “Stand By Me” (1986) however I’d say “Distress” is the very best King movie. The core purpose is that it’s a significantly better film than it’s a e book.
Reiner and Goldman have deleted the facets of the novel that had been, to make use of King’s terminology, “gooshy.” An absurd homicide with a garden mower and a too-much second with an axe (changed, relatively artfully, within the movie with a sledgehammer) have been altered or are altogether gone.
“Distress” is sort of violent at occasions and the grisly moments are well-earned and expertly staged.
Kathy Bates in Distress (1990) provides a efficiency so unpredictable it retains shifting between heat and pure menace.
pic.twitter.com/GAJnT4FTuA https://t.co/Y3urIxsvDv— cinesthetic. (@TheCinesthetic) August 19, 2025
Reiner has made it extra of a psychological chess match than a gory free-for-all that King inched in direction of. The emphasis on Buster the Sheriff (movingly performed by Richard Farnsworth), his spouse (the always-wonderful Frances Sternhagen) and Paul’s literary agent (movie legend Lauren Bacall) provides a reduction from the two-person construction and welcome comedian reduction. The actors make these figures participating and actual, versus mere supporting character distractions.
“Distress” grew to become a Broadway stage play on the Broadhurst Theater in 2015. Laurie Metcalfe performed Wilkes and, as Paul Sheldon, her co-star was at least Bruce Willis. Whereas the Broadway adaptation was written by Goldman, I used to be current on the legendary 2008 manufacturing, penned by Simon Moore, that passed off within the Miner’s Alley Playhouse in Golden, CO.
It was a two-person present starring Paige Larson and Carjado Lindsey (each riveting as Wilkes and Sheldon). The manufacturing maintained the unique foot-severing scene from King’s novel. It made for a terrifying night time of theater that also haunts my spouse and me.
“Distress” is an ideal thriller and a wealthy commentary on how one writes “for a dwelling,” actually and figuratively. It really works as a cautionary story in opposition to embracing one’s fandom. It’s additionally a grisly romantic comedy.
Even the ultimate scene, which may have performed as a jokey fade-out, is really chilling in its implications. Once you’re Paul Sheldon (or Stephen King, or Steven Spielberg, or anybody well-known), everybody you meet is a possible Annie Wilkes.