Review: Gerald's Game
Stephen King has been having quite the year, what with the box-office success of It and the high profile (though commercially underperforming) release of The Dark Tower. Now along comes Netflix's excellent adaptation of Gerald's Game, which is one of King's more atypical works. Both a physical and emotional survival story, it features a stellar Carla Gugino as Jessie, who is forced to confront monsters of a very human sort.
When the film begins, Jessie and her husband Gerald (Bruce Greenwood) are on their way to a remote cottage for a weekend in order to rekindle the flame that seems to have gone out of their marriage. Gerald tries to engage his wife into some kinky sexual games, handcuffing her to the bedposts and proceeding to enact a rape fantasy. Jessie is clearly uncomfortable with the role playing and, as she and Gerald argue about whether or not to continue, he drops dead of a heart attack. And so Jessie is left chained to the bed, the keys to the handcuffs out of reach, screaming for help where no one for miles and miles and miles can hear her, fending off a starving stray dog biting off chunks of Gerald's flesh, being visited by a phantom figure bearing a bag full of bones, and trying to figure out a way to keep alive without going insane.
Insanity is a very real fear, especially since she begins talking with hallucinated versions of Gerald and herself, with the latter keeping her in focus and bolstering her confidence and the latter taunting her with a particular childhood trauma. Though Jessie's present-day situation might be the main event for those seeking some Kingsian kicks, the more unsettling moments of the film are found in the flashbacks as Jessie's abuse at the hands of her father Tom. Chiara Aurelia as the young Jessie and Henry Thomas as her father handle their scenes with care and mastery. One feels the bewilderment that overtakes Jessie as her father masturbates behind her as they watch the solar eclipse. Even more wrenching is the scene where her father has her so convinced not to tell her mother that Jessie is the one desperately pleading with him to keep what happened a secret.
Director Mike Flanagan maintains the tension throughout and, considering what a strictly interior work the source novel is, he and co-writer Jeff Howard do a highly commendable job of pulling off the trickier aspects of the narrative. Nevertheless, some of their attempts at drawing out the female empowerment aspect of the story come off as heavy-handed and a touch too simplified. This, however, doesn't negate Flanagan's skill at crafting subtle and highly effective moments and Gugino's powerful and nuanced portrayal of a woman who is stronger than even she dares to believe.
Gerald's Game
Directed by: Mike Flanagan
Written by: Mike Flanagan, Jeff Howard; based on the novel by Stephen King
Starring: Carla Gugino, Bruce Greenwood, Carel Struycken, Henry Thomas, Kate Siegel, Chiara Aurelia
