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Review by Susan Granger
2½ stars out of 4
Despite its superb performances, this is a bleak film about one
of life's dissolute losers. Set in a tiny New Hampshire town in the
dead of winter, Nick Nolte is the local cop and snow-plower who's
brow-beaten by the town's real-estate power broker, unhappily divorced
from his wife, and painfully alienated from his pre-teen
daughter. Except for his waitress girl-friend, Sissy Spacek, no one
wants to be around him, even his drunk, sadistically violent and
emotionally abusive father, James Coburn, who allowed his mother to
freeze to death in their isolated farmhouse. As the story unfolds,
solemnly narrated by his younger brother, Willem Dafoe, we find out
how he came to be who he is and why, when a local union boss is
accidentally killed in a deer-hunting accident, he is told to just
look the other way - if he wants to keep his job. Instead, he indulges
his conspiracy theories involving foul play and discovers some
devastating truths about himself, his past, and his future. Adapted
from a novel by Russell Banks, this sanity-to-madness saga should be
more emotionally affecting than it is, but writer/director Paul
Schrader ("Taxi Driver," "Raging Bull") invests so much coldly
calculated gloom, doom, and foreboding into every cruel scene that
there are few highs and lows. From the beginning, Nolte's life is one
of tortured, desperate rage. With no self-esteem, he is spiritually
adrift and neurotic, unable to maintain a relationship with anyone. In
short, he's a wreck. His life is in shambles. All his dark angst is
symbolized by a persistent, throbbing toothache which he suffers
throughout. Both Nick Nolte and James Coburn deliver remarkable
performances, but on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Affliction"
is a desolate, uncompromising 6. One of the most harsh, depressing
movies of the season.
Copyright © 2000 Susan Granger
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