Affliction

Paul Schrader and Nick Nolte are no strangers to essaying works on violent, abusive men who shatter under their own ego, and Affliction, while no great masterwork, fits neatly in with their milieu.

While a very good movie, the stark cinematography and overall bleak nature of the production are invaluable assets in exposing the more absorbing story of familial demons and abusive cycles in generations, Affliction is so very close to greatness that its rewards far out-weigh the few missteps.

To get the bad out of the way, Sissy Spacek and Willem Dafoe are spectacular in their supporting roles, but they’re left with little screen time despite being characters so implicitly tied to the main narrative. Dafoe in particular does nothing much besides provide narration and show up for one extended scene as Nolte’s younger brother. Spacek works magic in her minimal screen-time going from supportive girlfriend to defiantly removing herself from the situation once her dignity and self-worth have become tarnished.

And a sub-plot involving Nolte’s character becoming obsessed with an accidental death and devolving into insane conspiracy theories and vigilante justice distracts and proves unnecessary. This storyline eats up too much time and distracts from the heart of the film which is the relationship dynamic between James Coburn as the father and Nolte as the son.

Nolte always seems to be such a commanding and brute force on the screen, a man who demands our attention, one that seems capable of tackling anything head-on with his sheer confidence. So it’s disarming to see him shrink into a frightened little boy in the presence of his father. Coburn, for his part, delivers a glorious performance of a truly horrendous man. Coburn was an abusive father, leaving his two sons shattered and his daughter a born-again religious zealot. His alcoholism and lecherous nature are so despicable that we can easily see why all of his children have abandoned him. Nolte has no emotional investment with him; he’s simply going through the motions of a father-son relationship. Dafoe fled town and endures his brother’s frequent midnight calls in which he drunkenly rambles on and on about nothing of substance.

The film is at its most potent when it sits back and observes their toxic relationship and how the father’s disease and anger have slowly turned his son into a paranoid, self-hating creature who inflects his wounds on anyone in close range. Coburn deservedly won an Oscar for his performance, and in a more just world Nolte would have won over Roberto Benigni. The ending alone is enough to justify the two men making a clean sweep of any and all acting awards given out in 1998. It’s a predetermined conclusion that one day, the abuse of a child will come back to strike a parent in some way, shape or form.