Very best movie i ever watch

Powerful

Excellent but underrated film

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Years ago I went with some friends to see an offbeat film called Prizzi's Honor. I still remember walking out of the theater and saying something like "I think I liked it." I had a similar experience with Paul Schrader's film Affliction. I actually saw the movie four weeks ago in Chicago, but since it is just opening in Jackson, I thought I would return to the subject-after four weeks I still think I like it, but I could be wrong.In subject matter, tone, and structure, Affliction is not a typical film. Nick Nolte was nominated for best actor for his performance here as Wade Whitehouse, a small town New Hampshire sheriff who's really not a very good sheriff. As the story develops, we also discover that he's also not a very good husband, father, boyfriend, friend, and-as long as we're on the subject-not a very likable guy in general. But as the story develops we also discover his past as one of two sons of an abusive alcoholic father (the Oscar-winning role for James Coburn). If there is a clear theme here it is about the sins of the father being visited on the children.This is not the first time Paul Schrader has dealt with people on the edge. Schrader is the Calvin College graduate who wrote the screenplays for Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Hardcore, Mosquito Coast, and The Last Temptation of Christ. Dark characters and divergent perspectives are Schrader's stock in trade. In that regard, Affliction is consistent with much of his previous work. Schrader also provides some caricatures of born-again Christians who deal with unpleasantness with simple-minded platitudes.Because of the unusual nature of the story line it is difficult to reveal too much about the plot without misleading or destroying the element of suspense. At the core, this film is about someone who finds his life spinning out of control. As his immediate world crumbles Wade Whitehouse is forced to take a look inside, and when he does he finds little but festering wounds that are forty years old.This makes for a dark and somber film, but a powerful film nonetheless. Schrader walks us to the edge of the abyss without a net or even a parachute. While the film is certainly not uplifting, it is insightful and powerful. Outstanding performances by Nolte and Coburn are ably supported by five-time Oscar nominee Sissy Spacek as Wade Whitehouse's girlfriend who watches in disbelief as the man she loves becomes "that which he beheld." This is clearly not a film for all audiences or all tastes. If you're looking for fluff, there are more than a few options at the box office now, since we are stuck between the end of the Oscar season and the beginning of the summer blockbusters. If you are ready for something more thought-provoking (in the tradition of Ingmar Bergman) Affliction is worth a look.

Wade Whitehouse (Nick Nolte) is a small town sheriff in New Hampshire. He's out with his daughter Jill on Halloween. He has a troubled relationship with her and his ex-wife Lillian. He is known as a drinker. Local Jack Hewitt guides a wealthy outsider to hunt for a prize buck. Jack claims that he accidentally shot himself but Wade is suspicious of the death especially since he's suppose to testify in an organized crime case. Wade and his girlfriend Margie Fogg (Sissy Spacek) visit his abusive father Glen (James Coburn) and find his mother dead in the freezing house. Wade's brother Rolfe (Willem Dafoe) and sister Lena return for the funeral. I don't always like narration and this opening narration really puts me off. It emphasizes to me the novelized nature of the movie which highlights the story's unfocused meandering nature. Nick Nolte is terrific and the cast is full of top notch players. It's nice to see James Coburn still acting with power. I need the movie to be more focus. There's a murder mystery and quickly, it's taken over by a dysfunctional family drama. It seems to be a constant pitfall for all adaptations from novels. The transfer from the page to the screen is not always smooth.

Roger Ebert described it well. The effects of abuse are similar to implanted medication. It continues to seethe inside the victim long after the original event or implantation. Nick Nolte stars as Wade Whitehouse, a shell of a man about to lose everything he has and knows, including his sanity, due just as much to his inability to learn to function as a person outside of the abusive environment he grew up in as his overbearing father's alcoholic stupors and redneck machismo. Nolte's mumbling has been criticized as indecipherable hogwash, but it's consistent with a person who has lost direction, confidence in himself, and his reason for being long ago. James Coburn plays Glen Whitehouse, Nolte's father, winning the best supporting actor Oscar for his mind-blowing portrayal of an abusive father who has simply played the same record over and over and over for many many years. Coburn's acting is a rare treat; in that, every action, gesture, nuance, and word of dialog coming out of his mouth makes up a portrait of abuse hanging in an imaginary gallery of contempt. Ironically, Wade and Glen share the name "Whitehouse", which of course symbolizes purity, goodness, and an idyllic existence all rolled into one but in reality is everything but that. Nolte's character is a small town sheriff with nothing much to do except plow snow and double as a school crossing guard until a hunting accident occurs and uncovers a possible financial conspiracy. Meanwhile, Nolte must deal with fighting his ex-wife (Mary Beth Hurt) for custody of his daughter who has either been programmed by Hurt against Nolte or has other reasons for disliking him. Every aspect of and social interaction in Nolte's life reduces him to nothingness, whether he tries to buy his daughter a hamburger, plead with his ex-wife (Hurt), give a person a ticket for a moving violation, interact with his best friend or his boss, or has cross words with his father (Coburn). There is not the slightest hint of success in Nolte's past, present, or future, except for the possibility of his current relationship with his new waitress girlfriend played by Sissy Spacek. Watching Nolte's life unfold layer by layer, it's no surprise to viewers when Spacek bails on Nolte as well. Director Paul Schrader wrote the script based on the novel by Russell Banks, and as in every good Schrader film, the acting and the dialog are outstanding. There is never a false note or Hollywood moment. Willem Dafoe, who previously starred in Schrader's earlier best effort Light Sleeper, plays Nolte's younger brother Rolfe who distanced himself emotionally and physically from this quagmire of a family years ago. So much so that Dafoe's ill-advised opinion regarding the hunting accident serves as the catalyst leading to a sequence of events, culminating in Nolte's Pyrrhic victory at the end. It's clear Dafoe's character did not know just how deep or how long Nolte's abuse was festering inside when Dafoe says "at least I was never afflicted by that man's (Coburn) violence". Nolte's character replies with "that's what you think" with a laugh and a tone of voice that makes it clear Wade Whitehouse has never been so sure of anything else ever before.Schrader sets the film in New Hampshire (although it was filmed in Quebec) during a snowy winter and features several shots of bleak landscapes and dimly lit night scenes, the perfect complements to a script depicting one man's small world of despair and desolation closing in and trapping him like an unexpected winter storm. The script's dialog is balanced with fantastic scenes during which the characters reveal much by doing only a little at times. The flashback scenes showing Coburn interacting with his son(s) are like home movies in the Bizarro world; Nolte recalling a family life and memories not worth the effort but always there nevertheless. Sissy Spacek, as Nolte's waitress girlfriend, has a scene at Coburn's house with Nolte present, and she rolls up and tightens her hands in her face, realizing immediately what Nolte took a lifetime to do, if even then. Nolte's toothache throughout the film and how he ultimately chooses to deal with it serves as a metaphor for Schrader's exposure of Nolte's festering rage and his inability to appropriately express anger. He turns to violence, just as his father (Coburn) did, to assert himself, combat his feelings of inadequacy, and to solve his problems. Abuse and violence begets abuse and violence. The film does not necessarily lead to any great redemption, resolution, or revelation. Instead, it builds quietly and slowly telling a story that many viewers are probably familiar with themselves, whether they share the similarity of alcoholic loved ones, a lack of success in their work or personal lives, or just shattered lives. It tells a story of how a man regresses from using his wits to his primitive instincts in order to survive emotionally. It's an interpersonal tragedy, and viewers with unflinching sunny dispositions may not identify with it at all. Viewers have complained about the film being too depressing, pointless, and a waste of their time, so liking the film a lot may be a matter of taste and tolerance, or it may just be that some viewers are unable to accept films without a happy or satisfying ending before the fadeout. ***1/2 of 4 stars.

With a cast headed by James Coburn, Nick Nolte, Willem Dafoe & Sissy Spacek, you might expect a tour-de-force in screen drama. Well; you'll be disappointed.This item was pulled from the bran-tub. Suspiciously, it came in one of those very thin plastic cases which usually betoken a crap movie, but for £1 it seemed worth a try. The case didn't deceive.Set in small town New Hampshire, USA, during the winter, we are treated to a dismal and rather confusing drama. Once more, the lighting crew appear to have gone on strike and even the interiors of buildings are places of unremitting gloom. The script may be 'realistic' but it is largely boring. Most of the dialogue is spoken in a hushed and hurried way that is frequently unintelligible. You strain to hear a clue that was never there, or a snippet of conversation that wasn't worth your attention. Nick Nolte's character has family problems. Yes; he's a dead-beat dad. Aren't they all? His own father (played by Coburn) was himself a violent man and - well; the abused eventually turns abuser.Partway through, a homicide bi-line appears in the form of a suspicious shooting. Is it an accident, or is it murder? It begins to look as though the movie will finally develop into something. 'A Perfect Plan' comes to mind, or even 'Fargo'. But not so. This issue just limps confusedly along with the dead-beat dad plot to no particular outcome whatsoever. It's also rather curious how many movies depict small-town America as cultural black-holes riven by disillusion, drink, and unhappiness. Can't humans ever be comfortable together? Just occasionally there are moments - all too brief - of tension, drama and tenderness, but for the very most part it's just a 109 minute dirge.The movie begins with a long-winded and convoluted intro narrated by Willem Dafoe (who plays Nolte's little brother) and ends in a similar way, but this time with a reproval of universal male domestic-violence that is as heavy-handed as it is plain wrong. It's a piece that might have been written by the most embittered, self-righteous feminist. And it absolutely stinks.The politically-correct with no discernment will love this crap. Those with a more balanced outlook will see it for what it is.