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Rarely have I admired the artistry of a movie more -- or respected it more -- or liked it less than is the case with AFFLICTION.
Nick Nolte's performance as Wade Whitehouse is indeed riveting and convincing, and everyone else in this movie offers a first-rate performance, and yet ... and yet ...
This movie was all but torture to sit through. Wade is a self-destructive mess, a part-time police officer, traffic cop, crossing guard, and town handyman; he is surrounded by injured, damaged, and broken people. Even Sissy Spacek's character, Margie, the most honest, open, and optimistic of all in this movie, is damaged -- not least by her attempts to be there for the man whom she loves but whom eventually she must leave to save herself.
James Coburn, as old man Whitehouse, is fearsome and appalling as Wade's brutal, sadistic, liquor-marinated father -- a terrifying force of nature whose appalling behavior Wade character eventually recapitulates.
Willem Dafoe plays Rolf, Wade's younger brother. I hate the ways in which novelists and moviemakers use historians as characters without grasping in any way how historians might actually LEARN something about their own lives from their profession. Rolf is a history professor at Boston University. He also is the off-camera narrator of this movie. Somehow his character never sees that he is as damaged -- afflicted -- by his father's violence as his older brother has been. At one point, he says as much, and Wade grins a wry, heartbreaking grin and says, "You wish." At a key point in this movie, when Wade has reluctantly concluded that a homicide that has happened in his town is a hunting accident, Rolf irresponsibly goads Wade back into action by telling him, "I believe that your first take on this case was right -- it wasn't an accident." On what basis? Just highflying speculation -- but it's enough to get Wade worked up enough to accuse his best friend of murder and his boss of conspiring to cover up murder, and to destroy his entire fragile, knife-edge-balanced life.
Mary Beth Hurt was unrecognizable in this movie, but she was first-rate. I hope that Sissy Spacek gets lots more work based on her performance here. And Nolte was truly astonishing -- but ...
Well, if you are the least bit depressed, stay the hell away from this movie. If you're being dragged down by worries about your life, or by relationship troubles, or by guilt about your family, or anything remotely like that, don't see AFFLICTION. Even if you think you're safe from its depressive and claustrophobic power, beware.
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