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Gerald's Game (2017), Unrated, ★★★


Boy, Stephen King adaptations are coming back into fruition with The Dark Tower and IT. About everybody who went to see the former was utterly disappointed or deemed it to be forgettable. I do not think that will be in anybody's top 10. I personally do not think it was that awful but it is still forgettable. The latter was a complete surprise not because of how the clown was used or how scary it was (it had scary moments but not completely scary) but the chemistry between the children in the Losers Club. They carried the movie to make it become a better experience than anticipated. Now, we have this smaller adaptation that is coming onto streaming services that might appeal to Stephen King readers or fans who appreciate his adaptations more than most people. But, the result is that this is a tense movie about survival and trauma that is centered in one room and mostly one solid performance  that is directed solidly by director Mike Flanagan.

Jessie and Gerald Burlingame (Carla Gugino and Bruce Greenwood) are on their weekend getaway to save their marriage and sex life. The pair arrive at a lake house and while Gerald is out taking his Viagra tablet, Jessie wants to get attention from a dog they saw earlier on their way to the house. The dog finds its way to the house and Jessie's steak is left on the floor, but not before they left the door open.

Jessie and Gerald are preparing for some foreplay as she is in her nightgown and he comes out shirtless with handcuffs. While they both get excited, Gerald gets rough with Jessie in bed as she starts to get uncomfortable with his seductive approach. Jessie demands for him to un-cuff her and they both question where their marriage is going. Right after the answer, Gerald suffers a heart attack and falls backwards onto the bottom of the bed and right onto the floor, leaving his head bleeding. Jessie calls out for help, but nobody hears her. She starts to suffer hallucinations of her past as she tries to get her phone on her bedside and a glass of water to maybe satisfy her thirst.


I cannot spoil this movie because the movie is not solely a character trying to survive, but also what lead her to that development of the character being more complex than she seems to be. But, what is so fascinating about this movie is that even though we expect to know more about her character through her hallucinations and maybe parallel that with the current situation, there is actually suspense in the hallucinations that makes you try to figure out what she is thinking and what she is identifying as reality or as her suffering as she is dehydrating. But, in those hallucinations, we follow her mother and father as they are trying to get her to go outside and look at the eclipse and without giving it away, it cleverly parallels her hallucinations while being trapped in the bedroom.

If I have a criticism about this movie, it is that they use the dog too much as a horror cliche and it delays the movie a bit. And, also, sometimes, the hallucinations can be a bit much as Flanagan maybe wants to show off how tricky the material can be. However, my criticism balances out with my praise of Carla Gugino's performance, as she is restrained to a physically demanding and difficult that uses all her strength to perform like a woman who is trapped in a sticky situation. She is quite chilling and unpredictable throughout the movie, as her strength gears up towards its conclusion of the movie as a metaphor when she is handcuffed appears and it is all revealed. This is a small, mature movie that gives Flanagan confidence in his direction and in Gugino in a limited space in this solid Stephen King thriller.

This is available on Netflix and even though this movie is unrated, this movie has violent images, sexual content and language and it is mostly geared towards college-age people and above because this is a mature Stephen King thriller.

***


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