i knew this would likely be good and that kathy bates would be incredible, but as the opening credits rolled i had no idea how fucking stacked this movie was -- written by tony gilroy, and also starring jennifer jason leigh, christopher plummer, david strathairn, eric bogosian, and baby john c. reilly??

this is a gut wrenching, painful film, but also beautiful and subtle and gorgeously shot. it weaves in and out of flashbacks in this flowing, seamlessly creative way. dolores has to be one of the best characters kathy bates has ever played. i know she won the oscar for MISERY which was a very fun, over the top performance... but holy shit she deserved it more for this one. she made dolores real and vivid, you feel every bit of the pain and the perseverance contained in this woman just from looking at her face. this has to be one of plummer's best performances, too. strathairn is fucking unhinged, almost cartoonish amongst performances that are otherwise more subdued... but then near the end when we see the "real" him... it's far fucking worse than the cartoon villain we'd been told about in the rest of the movie. oof.

this movie reminded me a bit of MYSTIC RIVER in the way it deals with very difficult subject matter, except this movie is really fucking good and not a hot pile of ass.

my only criticism of the film is for danny elfman, who gives us a mostly haunting, otherworldly score but gets too over the top in certain scenes where subtlety would have been far more effective.

i always wanted to see this film because i'd heard the novel is one of stephen king's most feminist works, and i'm at the point in my life where there's so much to read and it's easier to just watch the adaptation (especially when it's this well-made). i still intend to read the book, but i'm glad my introduction to the story was this film -- it makes some solid improvements on the already acclaimed source material, like bringing jennifer jason leigh's character into the foreground. dolores claiborne and vera donovan, the old woman dolores cares for, are two of the most fascinating characters i've seen in a long, long time. this film is full of amazing character work, in fact. why aren't mainstream, major studio releases like this anymore??

this story is going to stick with me. stephen king's non-horror/supernatural adaptations like STAND BY ME, MISERY, and SHAWSHANK seem to truly capture mainstream audiences in a way his more genre work doesn't, and i'm shocked this movie isn't spoken about in the same breath as those. examples it's obviously not as easily digestible considering the subject matter, but it's just as brilliantly made and perfectly, devastatingly told.

* * * .6 / 4

2024.10.09