Trailer
Plot summary
Wade Whitehouse is the policeman in Lawford, New Hampshire, a town where he knows everyone and where he also drives the snow plow. He is divorced from Lillian, and his daughter Jill does not want to be with him on Halloween. The next day the hunting guide Jack Hewitt reports that his guest Evan Twombley was shot dead in the woods, and the death is called an accident. Gordon LaRiviere, the town selectman, wants it kept quiet, but Wade notices things that do not fit and starts asking questions. Twombley was due to testify in a lawsuit. Wade's father Glen is an abusive drunk, and Wade spends time with Margie Fogg, whom he wants to marry.
Cast
- Brigid Tierneyas Jill Whitehouse
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Affliction (1997)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Paul Schrader wrote the role of Wade Whitehouse with Nick Nolte in mind and offered it to him five years before filming, but could not afford Nolte, then a bankable star after The Prince of Tides and Cape Fear.
- Nick Nolte says he turned the part down at first because he was busy with other projects and was not ready for it, and it was Nolte who brought the film to Bart Potter, the head of Largo Entertainment; five years on he felt he understood Wade better.
- Willem Dafoe wanted to play Wade Whitehouse, but admitted he could not do it "whether Nick Nolte was around or not"; Paul Schrader offered him the part of Rolfe Whitehouse instead, and Dafoe accepted it because he loved the novel.
- Paul Schrader cast James Coburn as Glen Whitehouse because he was bigger than Nick Nolte and could "convincingly dominate" him; urged to prepare for the role, Coburn replied, "Oh, you mean you want me to really act? I can do that."
- Nick Nolte says it was he who convinced Sissy Spacek, his co-star in 1980's Heart Beat, to appear in Affliction alongside him.
- Sissy Spacek's husband, Jack Fisk, came up with the idea of having the characters of Wade and Glen Whitehouse lick salt off their hands to show how similar the father and son are.
