Gerald’s Game is a Stephan King adaptation, directed by Hill House creator Mike Flanagan. Starring Carla Gugino – another Hill House alumni – as Jessie, who travels to a remote holiday home with her husband Gerald (Bruce Greenwood) in an attempt to revitalise their faltering marriage. Things begin to escalate however when Gerald, now heavily dependent on Viagra to offset his beleaguered masculinity, proposes that they enact a sordid rape fantasy to spice up things in the bedroom, much to Jessie’s reluctance. She eventually accedes to her husbands desires, and while handcuffed to the bed, Gerald suffers a fatal heart-attack. With her hands bound, no leverage to escape nor means of communication, Jessie must devise a plan to prevent fatal dehydration and repel the advances of an all too ravenous hound!
I’ve always personally enjoyed character driven stories that rely on situational misfortune. A narrative centred in one specific location, that is elevated on the performance of its actors. In this case espousing the absurd premise of a women trapped on her bed in a remote country retreat, held captive by her own mind rather than an intruder. Its very reminiscent of Stephen King’s much vaunted adaptation of “Misery”. Depicting a similar sense of foreboding hopelessness that makes you wonder just how is this person intended to escape? Gerald’s Game executes this with meticulous precision, setting up moments that seem conspicuously obvious, though you’re not sure why. A glass of water placed upon a shelf. A price tag from a negligee casually discarded onto a bed-side cabinet. Little details that on the surface seem trivial, but have greater significance as the story develops. As well as convey Jessie’s inherent capacity to improvise and survive.
It’s such an unusual, as well as humiliating situation to find yourself confined to. A situation only compounded by the sense of isolation and dissolution expedited by her fragmented mind. A mind that begins to conjure hallucinations, manifesting as a pragmatic version of herself and an agnostic depiction of her husband. A duel psychosis competing for her desire to survive. Dealing with an impossible situation, as she clings to her sanity as well as her life. Staving off the figurative and literal presence of Death. With the smug posturing of her deceased husband mocking her attempts at escape. His body decaying by the bed as flesh is torn from his corpse by the lingering appetite of a feral dog, that’s beginning to crave fresher meat.
Because the setting is so minimalist, Gerald’s Game, though cinematic, is also very theatrical. I can see this being performed on a stage, far removed from the commercialised pomposity of the West End or Broadway. And though the explicit scene’s are gratuitous, they’re sparse. With it’s visceral intensity tempered by the far more disturbing abuse Jessie suffered as a child. Memories that have been exposed and must now also be confronted.
Stephan King as an author is someone I’m rather ambivalent too. As much as I respect his craft, it’s the adaptations of his works I find most compelling. The Shining, Shawshank’s and Misery’s may go down as some of the more distinguished adaptations, but “Gerald’s Game” might be his most modest. And certainly another illustration of Mike Flanagan’s exemplary direction of horror.
Game, Complain, Repeat 