Well, what can I say about this movie? Hard to say anything new about it, really. So much has been written and said about this movie. It’s impossible to do a review of this movie. So, I guess I can just shortly explain the plot and praise the performances in this movie. Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) is a normal writer and former teacher who agrees to take care of an isolated hotel which has a long and violent past that has everyone in the hotel lose their minds. While Jack slowly gets more violent and angry about everything, his son Danny (Danny Lloyd) gets visions of horrific shit from both the past and future of this hotel. And these visions are called the ”Shining”. This is a really disturbing movie that gets under your skin. Jack Nicholson is excellent in this movie, one of my top 10 performances ever. Shelley Duvall as Wendy Torrance is also great in this movie. She plays this terrified, miserable, devastated, tortured character who is in complete shock over Jack Torrance’s mental breakdown. Now, famously, the actress wasn’t treated very well on set by the director Stanley Kubrick. Some say he was doing that because he was just being an asshole and others say that he was doing that so that she would give a very miserable performance, and, whatever he did, worked. This is an excellent and completely believable performance for the situation she is put in in this movie. I think both Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall should have deserved an Oscar for this movie. One for best actor in a leading role and one for best actress in a supporting role. These performances really are that great.
The Shining (1980) Movie Review
