Egads! So bleak and dark, it could’ve been made in the ‘70s. Teresa wasn’t keen. In fact we bailed, first time round. So this was my second go. Affliction is a slow burner. And, like the snowbound New Hampshire hamlet it’s set in, it’s cold and bleak.
I’ve always loved Nick Nolte, from everything like his most mainstream stuff, 48 Hours or Prince of Tides, to his role as Neal Cassady, in Heartbeat, or artist Lionel Dobie, in Martin Scorsese’s segment of New York Stories, Life Lessons. And the rest of the cast includes heavyweights like Willem Defoe, James Coburn and Sissy Spacek.
Nolte plays jaded policeman Wade Whitehouse, who’s worsening toothache turns out to be the least of his troubles. When a visiting businessman is shot in a hunting accident, Wade’s paranoid reaction, compounded by his abusive upbringing, at the hands of his alcoholic father (Coburn), begins an unravelling.
It’s a dark and sad story, and relentlessly negative, which is hard going. But as a character study, it is powerful and engaging. The plot arc is kind of predictable, but strong nevertheless. Nolte and Coburn are both truly horrible, frankly. But we still feel for them, especially Nolte, as he descends ever deeper into his own lowering circles of hell.
Nolte has had some odd roles, from sending his own machismo up, as Four Leaf Tayback in Tropic Thunder, or Harry LeSabre in the bonkers adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions, also starring Bruce Willis. In this movie he’s stuck in the cul-de-sac of what might now be called toxic masculinity.
Hardly uplifting, but I still thought this was a really strong film.