This is a hard film to grade because it is a dynamic, involving, and suspenseful drama right until it becomes absolutely absurd in its final 10 or so minutes and downright insulting in its last few shots. Antonio Banderas plays a once-celebrated, now-uninspired writer and alcoholic living in a secluded Colorado cabin. After a chance encounter in a diner, he invites a charismatic traveler (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) to stay with him. The drifter begins to exert control over his host, urging, even threatening, him to stay sober and create. The influence of Stephen King's Misery—and its iconic film adaptation—is clear as author-versus-house-guest tension mounts, and the way the main characters' pantomime of a rivalry and hostage situation slowly, almost imperceptibly morphs into an actual hostage situation is intriguing. Banderas and Meyers both deliver brooding, compelling performances. Unfortunately, the film decides it requires not one, but two twist endings in the overt, this-changes-everything Primal Fear/Sixth Sense/Usual Suspects tradition, and both land with deafening, groan-worthy thuds. The first is grating in a more conventional way: a major reversal, an expository monologue, prior scenes shown from another perspective, an overwhelming sense of contrivance, etc.

C+

I had someone ruin the ending for me and I'm glad they did. Will not invest my time in the movie after that. Seriously the worst kind of twist they could have.