Recently Viewed: Affliction (1997)
An influential businessman dies in a freak hunting accident. Single gunshot wound through the chest. No witnesses. One stubborn cop suspects foul play, and must dig through a mountain of apathy and corruption to uncover the truth.
We’ve all heard this story before.
Or have we? How much of this small-town conspiracy is real, and how much exists only in the imagination of our troubled protagonist—a delusion dreamed up by a psychologically-scarred man desperately trying to cope with his drug and alcohol dependence, his shattered marriage, his tyrannical father’s physical and emotional abuse?
That’s what sets Paul Schrader’s Affliction (adapted from a Russell Banks novel) apart from conventional thrillers: the murder mystery is just another brush stroke in the beautiful, haunting character portrait. Transporting Schrader’s favorite theme—urban isolation—to a cozy, snow-covered New Hampshire town, the film instead emphasizes the various internal and external forces that gradually push Wade Whitehouse (an aggressive Nick Nolte) toward a violent self-destruction (recalling Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle, American Gigolo’s Julian Kaye, Light Sleeper’s John LeTour). And any little spark might trigger the explosion—even something as insignificant as a toothache.
