Review: Affliction

 
Set in snowy New Hampshire, Nick Nolte is a local put-upon sheriff cum handyman, estranged from his ex (Mary Beth Hurt), not on great terms with his daughter, and still dealing with his disturbing childhood. This is chiefly thanks to an abusive, thoroughly mean-spirited father (a towering, surprisingly charmless performance by James Coburn, mostly in flashback) who terrified him and his brother, who has since moved away and become a success, and is played by Willem Dafoe. When Nolte starts to investigate a supposed fatal hunting accident, Nolte starts to smell a murder conspiracy, but the investigation also starts to bring back the painful memories for troubled Nolte. Sissy Spacek is his new squeeze, who clearly doesn’t know what she’s in for.

Dour, flawed 1998 Paul Schrader (director of “Blue Collar”, screenwriter of “Taxi Driver”) film gets whatever mileage it has from a fine lead turn by Nolte and a powerhouse, Oscar-winning turn by Coburn (probably the most ambitious of his career, He’s a favourite of mine, but he sure picked up a lot of pay checks in his time). Unfortunately it’s all rather ugly, somewhat uninteresting, and often horribly handled. Schrader gives us an annoyingly earnest voice-over from a somewhat extraneous character (Dafoe, actually miscast as a ‘normal’ guy. C’mon, it’s Willem Freakin’ Dafoe!) that severely hurts the impact of it all.

I also found the plotting seriously confusing. This is mostly because the film has two story strands (Nolte’s relationship with his family, and his investigation of a crime) that just make for an overcrowded mess, the latter strand needed far more emphasis in order for the film’s ending to work. As is, the ending somewhat confused me, even though the two strands indeed come together by the end.

Still, Coburn fans should give it a go at least once, and fans of Schrader’s work will probably embrace it more than I did. It just didn’t do it for me, but there are moments.

Rating: C+