Gerald's Game

Gerald’s Game is a psychological thriller that is ambitious in terms of its content, which was more than its average creator could handle. Directed by Mike Flanagan, the movie has a promising start, but the majority of its story with “imaginative advisors” is like daytime TV – cheap and completely missing the mark. And the second plotline with the murderer and childhood trauma is just a bizarre extension, which in the climax rather clashes with the previous plot. The idea of a woman in such a precarious situation is great. To elaborate it in a subtle, even minimalist way would have been a winning move (for example: if she was tied to the bed from the first shot and we learned how she got there from flashbacks, in parallel with retrospective cuts to her childhood). (10/30/2018)

The first half Gerald’s Game plays out promisingly with just two well-matched actors and a dog (a similar setup as in The Mountain Between Us, which is currently in cinemas) in one room, an unpleasant situation and a few objects that could potentially resolve it. There are plenty of cuts and changes of perspective to hold our attention, the uncertainty of what is real and what is only imagined (in which the film is a more sophisticated variation on torture porn – it’s not just about physical pain, but also about holding on to one’s sanity). The presentation of the female protagonist’s train of thought is handled more elegantly than in, for example, 127 Hours with its affected flashbacks. I consider the flashbacks, which first appear after roughly fifty minutes, to be the film’s main stumbling block. The heretofore concentrated narrative, with its strictly limited number of ways to continue the game, loses traction and gets bogged down in pseudo-psychological explanations for Jessie’s difficulties with men. This is King’s favourite abusive cliché, with which he works in It, for example, and which is based on the rather questionable belief that in order for a woman to discover her inner strength, she must first suffer terribly. Cutting out the flashbacks and the very awkwardly appended emancipatory afterword could turn this into a brisk low-budget surprise that has no need to complicate a simple initial idea with lengthy explanations. At the same time, however, I understand that it is also a service to King’s fans, who will most likely appreciate this self-destructive fidelity to the source material. 65% (10/08/2017)

It is paradoxical that once King is adapted faithfully once in a blue moon, it is made according to the original that would need one or even better, two rounds of uncompromising editorial commentary that would make it a lot better. In other words, what worked well in the original (basically all the passages in the bed, character study, loss of coherent thinking, reality versus hallucinations, a broken psyche controlling children's fears, coping with inner demons, the will to survive at all costs or vigilant "Cujo" on guard) it works well here either. But the same is true about the things that did not work (basically all the passages outside the bed, a completely appalling ending, continuous flashbacks, maybe just cut-ins/flashes à la The Wild would do it good, and on top of that the initial part has not enough space, i.e. “I´m not only fucked but I´m going crazy too"), so they don´t work were here either. And no matter how shorter it should have been (not only by the mentioned epilogue), thanks to the duo Carl / Bruce it is not such a big deal. In short, it´s a solid average movie with a few memorable moments and an excellent cast. PS: There are also some references to kingversum for king fanatics. (09/29/2017)

#metoo movie. Sojka told me wed be seeing these movies quite often now. So what the heck, worse things have happened, the story isn't so bad, after all, especially if you have no idea what you're getting into ("Jesus it's going to be all about him torturing her on the bed and her trying to escape." "Jesus, it's gonna be all about her trying to get herself out of bed." "Jesus, it’s gonna... yeah, that."), the atypical plot development pretty much keeps you in your seat. And yet the maudlin middle section, stretching seemingly endlessly, the unbalanced performances, and the fact that 80% of the film alternates between only about eight different shots doesn't justify the 103-minute running time. (01/05/2018)

A Stephen King dense psychological charade that is masterfully played out, but doesn't deliver a sufficiently full-blooded resolution at its paradoxically literal conclusion. Flanagan is at his strongest in the first 45 minutes, showing excellent work with mise-en-scene and suspense in a very limited space. The problem comes when psychological themes start to mix with mystery ones, because at times it really comes across like spilled tea. Not to mention the flashbacks, which certainly had a solid place in the plot but often felt unnecessarily lengthy. If there was anywhere that should have been cut more, it was with the flashbacks. Overall, though, a solid genre affair that will definitely have it’s day on Netflix. (01/21/2020)