Gerald’s Game (2017)

Directed by Mike Flanagan. Starring Carla Gugino, Bruce Greenwood, Henry Thomas, Chiara Aurelia. [TV-MA]

Gugino and Greenwood travel to a remote lake house to try and reignite the spark in their marriage, which Greenwood uses as an opportunity to get kinky with the handcuffs and roleplay; next thing you know, he’s keeled over dead and she’s chained to the bedposts, trapped, and with no one likely to discover them for several days. Stephen King’s novel of the same name hardly cried out for a film adaptation—the lion’s share of the book takes place in the protagonist’s head—but director/co-writer Flanagan manages to find a way to tell the story in cinematic terms and sheds most of the more outlandish elements of the original text. Still, even at only around 100 minutes, the core concept is stretched thin and the suspense ebbs far more than it builds. The supernatural elements aren’t smoothly incorporated either, making the revelation at the end more clumsy (and implausible) than intriguing. Greenwood is good as expected; Gugino is even more impressive, tackling a challenging role and excelling at being the victim and victor both.

63/100