the audience applauded

Better Late Then Never

Am I Missing Something?

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

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.

I read the novel a couple weeks ago and thought it was a masterpiece, couldn't put it down. The character of Wade Whitehouse and how he progressed from childhood to his 40s was masterfully related. So I just got the movie on Netflix. Ugh. The movie is SO rushed, with almost no back story whatsoever, that there is no logic behind how anyone acts. Nothing about his youth and how his high school sweetheart and he supported each other through their family issues, nothing about the 2 older brothers who died in the war, totally sugar coated the violent father (one smack in one flashback!), cut major plot points altogether. Basically where everything flowed and you could understand how he got to a point and you felt bad for him in the book, the movie he just seems nutty.Read the book, it is a rewarding, haunting experience that will stay with you. The movie is good actors trying their best but it is a mere shell of the source material.

From the novel by Russell Banks, Paul Schrader's 'Affliction' is a depressing film, that leaves you with a hangover. Schrader's screenplay is so interesting and well-nuanced that your gripped throughout. The biggest plus point of the film, is, that it doesn't try to be REAL, because it pretty much is.'Affliction' is the story of Wade Whitehouse, played amazingly by Nolte, a depressed/frustrated and deranged man who hasn't recovered from the child-abuse he suffered from his father, played by the late James Coborn. As Wade is a small-town policeman in New Hampshire, he begins to investigate of a recently-deceased. 'Affliction' is a sad story of a sad man, who slowly starts aping his evil father as life comes to him. Which becomes his biggest defeat. But, it's a memorable character nonetheless.Paul Schrader's direction is brilliant as well. It's a tough subject to execute, understand and believe in. Schrader is at the top of his creativity in here. Performance-Wise: Nick Nolte as Wade, is amazing. The veteran sinks his teeth into the character and delivers his careers finest performance. The Late James Coburn is astounding. He plays the evil-part superbly and it doesn't come as a surprise that he was awarded an Oscar for his work over-here. Willem Dafoe is wonderful in a brief, but substantial role. Sissy Spacek is good. Jim True passable.On the whole, 'Affliction' is a must watch. It does depress you, but that is it's sheer power. Strongly Reccmended, with Two Enthusiastic Thumbs Up!

Nick Nolte tears up the screen as a bundle of raw nerves in this harrowing domestic drama. I can appreciate the skill that went into the film, and it features some terrific performances, but I can't say I necessarily enjoyed it, as it's intense and unsettling.Nolte plays a man struggling with his own incompetence as a father even as he watches his own horrid father -- once a towering and frightening figure of discipline and stern rule -- teeter into old age and decrepitude. James Coburn plays the father, and the man he creates on screen is monstrous.The film is unrelentingly grim and at times downright uncomfortable. It brought Coburn his lone Oscar nomination and win and won Nolte the second of his two Best Actor nominations.Grade: B+