A harrowing film about the cycles of abuse, Affliction is as cold and unforgiving as the winter in which it’s set. Nick Nolte gives a shattering performance as Wade Whitehouse, a small-town cop who’s drawn into a mystery over a hunting accident. While trying to figure out what really happened, his life begins to unravel; his relationships with his daughter, girlfriend, and father all bear down on him, pushing him closer and closer to the edge.
As he seems to get closer to solving a the mystery (which may or may not be a mystery after all), he grows more paranoid and self-destructive. At the root of it all is his relationship with his abusive, overbearing father, brilliantly portrayed by James Coburn. By the film’s end, even I wanted to strangle the old SOB.
A difficult film to watch, especially in the scenes of Wade and his daughter, but it makes a pointed statement about abuse. Try as he might to be a better man than his father, Wade’s cut from the same cloth, and you know it’s only a matter of time before the old man’s abuse takes its final toll. And when it happens, you know it’s all hit the fan and there’s no respite.