I swear we watched this some time ago, but I forgot to write it up, heh.

I’m getting really bad about on-time updates. I admit it doesn’t seem that hard to keep up with this stuff, but it has been for me.

Slacker slacker me.

Dolores Claiborne is a very interesting King movie, based upon an unusual King book. In the book there is precious little of the supernatural, and in the movie, none whatsoever; this isn’t a book about supernatural horror, and in fact, one could argue as to whether it qualifies as ‘horror’ at all. I’d classify it as a sort of psychic horror, myself; a story about the pain and lingering regrets that can poison and darken a person’s life and haunt their memories.

Dolores Claiborne definitely has an Oscar-baity, high brow movie feel to it. First, Kathy Bates is back after her award-winning turn in another King movie, Misery, as the eponymous lead of the film. Directing is Taylor Hackford, most famous for An Officer and a Gentleman. In supporting roles you have Christopher Plummer, and Jennifer Jason Leigh plays Selena St. George, Dolores’ estranged daughter. Judy Parfitt plays Vera Donovan, Dolores’ former employer and a very complicated woman; she’s a minor character really, but I thought was very striking, so I’ll include her in the cast discussion if I please, hehe.

So there was some acting/directing firepower brought to bear on this movie.

Dolores Claiborne concerns the life of, well, Dolores Claiborne, her rocky relationship with an estranged daughter, and two deaths: her elderly employer (who we see fall down the stairs under suspicious circumstances at the beginning of the film) and, 15 years earlier, that of her abusive, alcoholic husband (played by David Strathairn). Dolores is on the slow-track to a murder trial over this latest death, and her daughter comes to the small island off the coast of Maine (ha! of course it was Maine) to try and settle things before moving on with her life.

The movie adheres to a fairly strict, dual timeline approach to telling this story. We see the modern day life of Selena and Dolores as a drab, cold world of greys and blues, and when they recall the past (often being immersed in their own visions), it is a warm, sunny place of reds and yellows.

Quite frankly, the blueness of the present is overdone a bit. We get it; things are cold and unpleasant. Still you’d think someone would have the heat turned up, a nice fire going, somewhere in this godforsaken town.

Still, the fine acting carries the movie. Dolores herself is a cranky misanthrope, antagonizing the detective sent to investigate the death (Plummer’s character, who was also the man charged with investigating her husband’s death, and who holds a grudge for being unable to send her to prison over that matter). Selena is a drug abusing, hard drinking power-reporter, trying to shove her past, and perhaps her only remaining family, out of the way so that she can pursue a major story that she hopes will catapault her to fame.

Kathy Bates is simply amazing here. She steals every scene she’s in, and, I think, turns in an even better performance than she did in Misery. It’s a very complicated character and a complicated role with she carries off without a hitch, and without her, I don’t think they’d have had a movie at all.

I won’t spoil the story, since a lot of people haven’t seen this and it’s not a pop culture icon that arrives pre-spoiled (gee, you think The Shining is about a haunted hotel? or Pet Sematary about, well, undead demon corpse things?). Suffice it to say, the movie deals with psychic baggage, memories you’d rather leave behind, the pain that shapes our lives long after the cause of said pain is gone. It’s a very down to earth, very adult movie (complex, not pornographic). No car crashes, no explosions, no gore, no monsters (except perhaps the human kind). Just people hurting each other and feeling that hurt.

Definitely worth seeing, and a very unusual, yet still very King, movie.

Bonus: I didn’t remember this, but the island that this story takes place on is used several other times in the King-o-Verse, including being the setting for King’s take on the Romero zombieverse, “Home Delivery”, as well as the more recent “Storm of the Century”.

Next Week: Thinner! Diet plan from hell!
Last Week: The Mangler! The worst movie yet, I think.