Web posted on:
Thursday, January 07, 1999 11:50:54 AM EST

From Reviewer Paul Tatara

(CNN) -- I don't know if I agree with some of the critics that I've been reading who say that Paul Schraeder's "Affliction" is a great movie, but there's no denying that it's a powerfully bizarre one.

Starring Nick Nolte and based on the novel by Russell Banks (who also wrote the equally despairing book that Atom Egoyan's "The Sweet Hereafter" was adapted from), the movie follows the steady decline of Wade Whitehouse (Nolte), an emotionally battered man who never properly perceives that his relationships are crumbling because of his own unspoken rage.

Though we catch a glimpse or two of his vicious father (brilliantly played by James Coburn) slapping him around when he was a child, nothing about Wade's motivations is really explained until an unfortunately pedantic voiceover at the end of the film.

That gets a little annoying after a while, but Schraeder is doing something pretty brave here. He takes us so deep inside a troubled character's head, we soon realize his troubles won't allow him (or us) to grasp the unraveling threads of his life with any logic or clarity, and we're just going to have to accept it. We seldom understand what Wade is doing because Wade himself doesn't know what he's doing.

Then Schraeder incriminates the audience by seeing to it that the single most violent act of the film is also its most easily comprehensible one. As he did so famously with "Taxi Driver"'s Travis Bickle, Schraeder illuminates the fact that some people boil for so long, and so intensely, they finally have to explode. It's the only logical response when logic is no longer any good to them.

The milieu is the same as in "The Sweet Hereafter": A humble, snowbound community where people know too much about each other and their every movement is hindered by the dual dangers of ice and human misunderstanding.

Wade is supposed to be a police officer, but he's treated as something less than an authority figure by the community. He's really just a gofer for a local heavyweight who may or may not be involved in some dirty dealings with an up-and-coming political figure. He has to direct traffic and play policeman when the need periodically arises, but it's nothing too taxing. Wade basically does what he's told to do, even if it means climbing into the cab of a truck and smoking a joint while he's supposed to be watching his young daughter (Brigid Tierney) at a Halloween carnival.

He's divorced from the girl's mother (played by Schraeder's real-life wife, Mary Beth Hurt), and he's trying desperately to find some way to regain custody of the girl, never mind that she's seen her father screw up so many times she can barely stand to be in the same room with him.

But that's how Wade operates. He knows something's wrong, so he tries to make something right. He never seems too worried about whether the "something right" will have any effect at all on the problem at hand, he just plows ahead, imagining that he's finally taking over the reins of his life. Eventually, a visitor to the town is killed in a deer hunting accident, and Wade starts to convince himself that one of his best friends murdered the visitor. He investigates the situation, but only as far as he needs to to get the exact answer he set out to find.

Schraeder presents all this in a disturbingly roundabout manner. Scenes that are just begging for a huge emotional payoff cut away before we get to see one, and quiet moments are suddenly quashed by an unexpected burst of violent energy. The crime (if there's actually been one) is not really dealt with in any consistent manner, so the movie isn't really about it. And Wade makes a vain attempt at starting a relationship with a somehow-hopeful local woman (Sissy Spacek, and it's great to see her), but he approaches it so lackadaisically, the movie isn't really about that, either.

The most constant suggestion of a theme comes from Wade's dealings with his arrogant, brutal father. There's a scene where Nolte and Spacek ride out to the countryside to speak to the old man, only to find him drunk and sitting in a freezing house. When Nolte creeps up the stairs to the bedroom where his elderly mother is supposed to be sleeping, he finds that she's frozen to death.

Coburn's reaction isn't unsympathetic, but -- like Wade usually does -- he hardly seems able to grasp the severity of the situation. He simply sighs that it should have been him who died, then sits down to pour himself another drink. It's an incredibly spooky, disturbing moment that perfectly encapsulates the film as a whole.

For all its force, parts of the script are sloppily written. Willem Dafoe plays Wade's college-professor brother, who shows up for their mother's funeral with a bitter expression that tells us he couldn't be any farther removed from these people who used to be his family. That's fine -- and makes perfect sense -- but then he pipes up with a theory about what went on during that hunting accident that simply doesn't wash coming out of this guy's mouth. At that point, he becomes a plot device. The same can be said of his sparsely utilized but still overwritten narration. He's not participating in the story; he's just helping us out.

When all is said and done, though, the movie belongs to Nolte. He's one of the film's producers, so he must have known what a great role Wade is. Nolte's usual tendency to growl and slouch around like a hard-drinking Frankenstein's monster is kept in check for the first time in years. The fear in Wade's eyes, and his stumbling explanations of what he's trying to accomplish in his life, are heartbreaking. You can see that he's lost track and will probably never straighten things out again.

His attempt at a solution is not really unexpected, but the tragedy is that Wade doesn't see that it's no solution at all. The ice on those streets has gotten into his heart.

"Affliction" is absolutely unrelenting. The movie's release was actually postponed because of this; it seems highly improbable that it'll make a buck in these days of "Patch Adams" and animated bugs. Depending on the breaks, Nolte (who industry-types really like) may win an Oscar. I'd vote for Sean Penn in "Hurlyburly," but if Nolte walks away with it, you'll hear no complaint from me. Rated R. 113 minutes.