Starring Jack Nicholson, The Shining follows a family that got stuck in an hotel turning out to be an homicidal maniac hell-bent on terrorizing the family.
The first time I saw Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, I had to turn it off during three key moments... Perhaps this time, I prayed, [it] would seem almost comically silly. Yeah, not so much.
Anyone coming to this work for the first time should be forewarned that the will generate more giggles (and perhaps a yawn or two), but there is absolutely nothing here to fear.
As a ghost story and adaptation of the Stephen King novel, it's largely a failure. On the other hand, as an example of directorial bravura and as a study of madness and the unreliable narrator, it's a brilliant success.
Kubrick is after a cool, sunlit vision of hell, born in the bosom of the nuclear family, but his imagery -- with its compulsive symmetry and brightness -- is too banal to sustain interest, while the incredibly slack narrative line forestalls suspense.
If The Shining isn't trivial, it certainly encourages one to think that it is. But, perhaps, even that's a change for the better. Generally, it's the other way around.
