AFFLICTION

AFFLICTION is a harrowing account of a life gone wrong. A beautifully nuanced story of the devastating effects of generational sin, violence and alcoholism, it is an excellent commentary on the purposelessness and pain of a life without God.

Based on the novel by Russell Banks (THE SWEET HEREAFTER), AFFLICTION tells the tale of how and why Wade Whitehouse, played by Nick Nolte, disappeared. Wade lives his desperate existence as a part-time sheriff in the depressed town of Lawford, New Hampshire. The landscape is cold and unforgiving, as is Wade’s world.

Wade’s marriage to Lillian, played by Mary Beth Hurt, is over, and his relationship with their daughter Jill, played by Brigid Tierney, is strained. Lillian has remarried well. She and Jill live in an upscale town in New Hampshire. Jill dreads going to Lawford to see her father, because Wade is an alcoholic, like his father before him. Like many addicts, he is unaware of why Jill dislikes spending her time with him. He doesn’t listen to her, tries to force her to join other children and desperately needs her love and admiration. The more he tries to force her to love him, the more she withdraws, so Wade decides he’ll sue for custody, unaware that custody is not the problem.

A buddy of Wade’s named Jack, played by Jim True, is hired to take a union boss out hunting for the day. The union boss is shot and killed in what looks to be a hunting accident, but Wade doesn’t buy it. He starts his own investigation and becomes obsessed with proving a larger conspiracy of murder and bribery.

This obsession is driven in part by Wade’s personal demons, including his poor relationship with his daughter. His father, played by James Coburn, was and still is an abusive alcoholic, and Wade’s girlfriend Margie, played by Sissy Spacek, shrugs off his marriage proposal. Margie realizes that Wade’s proposal is driven by a desire to have a proper home so he can increase his chances of gaining custody of his daughter and winning the love he so desperately needs. His father’s abusiveness drove away Wade’s brother Rolfe, played by William Dafoe, who narrates the story with a concerned but detached heart. As Rolfe comments at one point, “At least I was never afflicted by the menace of violence.” Wade’s father wryly tells Wade, “Everything you know, comes from me.”

Wade needs to be redeemed, loved and respected, but his attempts at redemption in breaking the murder case and seeking the love of Jill and Marge fail, because he is so desperate and addicted. He drinks and drinks and, as his life whirls in despair, he becomes more compulsive and violent, just like the father he resents so much. In a metaphor for his pain, Wade has an aching tooth. Instead of taking care of it, he merely drowns the pain with alcohol. Finally, when he can take it no longer, he calls the dentist. Unable to get an appointment that day, he pulls out the tooth himself in an excruciating scene.

The novelist behind the story for AFFLICTION, Russell Banks, has a gift for capturing the pathos and bitter sadness of humanity without God. Director Paul Schrader, who also scripted THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST, TAXI DRIVER and RAGING BULL, has written a sterling script in this adaptation. His directing here is fluid and assured, helped by the use of angles and filters that suggest the cold numbing pain Wade feels so deeply. Also, Schrader is able to gain flawless performances from a noteworthy cast of veterans such as Nolte, Coburn, Spacek, and Dafoe. Finally, Schrader uses Michael Brook to compose the moody, almost surreal musical score which fills in the emotions we can’t name.

AFFLICTION is a commentary on the purposeless pain of a sinful life without God. It also serves as a beautiful illustration of generational sin and how each generation manifests what is modeled to it, no matter how ugly. Thus, AFFLICTION paints a haunting portrait of the tentacles of sin reaching ever further into destruction with each era. Regrettably, however, the way out of this generational bondage is never suggested, so the characters are caught in a world without the salvation available to them in Jesus Christ.