Paul crashes his Camaro on a mountain road while driving drunk after celebrating the completion of his manuscript Fast Cars.

Annie introduces herself to the disoriented and injured Paul as his "number-one fan."

Paul concludes that Annie is "dangerously crazy" and realizes he has already become addicted to her Novril painkillers.

After finishing Misery's Child and discovering Misery dies, Annie abandons Paul alone for over two days without food or medication.

Annie forces Paul to burn his Fast Cars manuscript in a charcoal grill she wheels into his room.

Annie gives Paul an old Royal typewriter missing the N-key and commands him to write a novel called Misery's Return.

Annie reads Paul's first attempt at Misery's Return and declares it a dishonest "cheat" that must be completely rewritten.

Paul escapes his locked room and discovers dozens of Novril sample boxes hidden in the bathroom linen closet.

Paul reads Annie's scrapbook "Memory Lane" and discovers she has committed murders stretching back to her childhood.

After discovering Paul sneaked out of his room multiple times, Annie severs his left foot with an axe.

Paul shatters his window with a ceramic ashtray to alert Officer Kushner, who recognizes Paul from a photograph.

Annie murders Officer Kushner by running him over repeatedly with her riding lawnmower.

Paul sets fire to the lighter-fluid-soaked manuscript and smashes the Royal typewriter down onto Annie's back.

State troopers break into Annie's farmhouse and rescue Paul, but find the locked bedroom completely empty — Annie is gone.

Paul sees a boy pushing a skunk in a shopping cart on a New York street and begins writing a new story, weeping.

Paul Sheldon, a bestselling novelist, crashes his car in a Colorado snowstorm after celebrating the completion of his manuscript and is rescued — and imprisoned — by Annie Wilkes, his obsessive self-described number-one fan. Annie forces Paul to destroy his new literary novel and instead write a continuation of the romance series he had hoped to leave behind. As Paul descends into Novril addiction and uncovers the terrifying scope of Annie's murderous history, his desperation hardens into a resolve to fight back. A visiting police officer's grisly murder at Annie's hands convinces Paul he must act before she does the same to him. Paul ultimately uses the very manuscript and typewriter Annie forced upon him to overpower her, and state troopers finally rescue him from the farmhouse. Though Paul survives, his road to recovery is long, and it is only a chance encounter on a New York street that finally unlocks his ability to write again.

The core captivity, coercion, and survival of Paul Sheldon.

Paul celebrates finishing Fast Cars with champagne at the Boulderado Hotel, then drives drunk into a mountain snowstorm.

Annie grows furious at the profanity in the Fast Cars manuscript and hurls a soup bowl against the wall.

As punishment for the soup mess, Annie forces Paul to wash down his Novril pills with a bucket of soapy water.

Annie returns from her long absence and tells Paul that God spared his life because he has a job to do.

Annie wheels Paul to the bedroom window for the first time, revealing the surrounding farm, mountains, and red barn.

Annie punches Paul's injured knee and tells him no one can hear him scream because the town thinks she got away with murder.

Paul and Annie settle into a productive daily routine as Paul writes approximately twelve pages of Misery's Return each day.

Annie sinks into a severe depression, arriving disheveled and slapping herself hard across the face in front of Paul.

Annie squeezes a wounded rat to death with her bare hands, then offers to end both their lives with her gun.

Annie injects Paul with a sedative while he sleeps and the next morning confronts him with proof she knew he left his room.

Annie informs Paul that the spring melt swept his Camaro away, eliminating a key hope of accidental discovery and rescue.

State troopers Wicks and McKnight arrive at the farmhouse and question Annie about the disappearance of Officer Kushner.

Paul chooses not to alert the troopers and resolves to finish Misery's Return and kill Annie himself.

Annie severs Paul's left thumb with a Betadine-soaked electric knife as a second act of punishment.

Paul learns from the returning troopers that Annie's body was found dead in her barn, still clutching her chainsaw.

Before his crash, Paul had already been drinking heavily — a flaw that defines his vulnerability throughout the novel. Annie's control over Paul begins with small humiliations, from forcing him to swallow pills with soapy water to brief wheelchair tours of the farm that underscore how utterly isolated he is. Their relationship settles into a deceptive routine of productivity punctuated by Annie's violent mood swings, including a harrowing depressive episode involving a dead rat and a loaded gun. After Annie discovers Paul has been leaving his room, she subjects him to an escalating series of mutilations, costing him a foot and then a thumb. When state troopers arrive to investigate a missing officer, Paul stays deliberately silent — a calculated gamble to take Annie's fate into his own hands. In the end, Paul escapes captivity but must still face the psychological wreckage Annie left behind, replacing one addiction with another before finding his way back to the page.

The captivity's hidden moments and its long, difficult aftermath.

Annie rescues Paul from his overturned Camaro during a snowstorm and takes him to her farmhouse rather than a hospital.

Paul uses one of Annie's bobby pins to pick the lock on his bedroom door and enters the hallway for the first time.

Paul discovers the farmhouse telephone has been deliberately disabled, eliminating any hope of calling for outside help.

Paul slips back into his room seconds before Annie arrives home and hides stolen Novril boxes deep under his mattress.

Paul solves the Misery resurrection problem by devising a catalepsy plot in which Misery was buried alive but not truly dead.

A county tax official delivers a lien notice to Annie's farm, forcing her to gag and handcuff Paul to his bed.

Paul steals a long butcher knife from Annie's kitchen and hides it under his mattress, intending to use it against her.

Annie reveals she killed and disposed of hitchhiker Pomeroy near the same stretch of road where she found Paul's wrecked car.

Paul secretly begins lifting the Royal typewriter like a barbell each day, conditioning himself to use it as a weapon against Annie.

After murdering Kushner and hiding his body in the barn, Annie installs a Krieg lock on Paul's bedroom door.

Annie carries Paul down to the damp basement and locks him in while she drives Kushner's cruiser away under cover of darkness.

A television news crew arrives at Annie's property and Annie fires her rifle into the air to force them to leave.

Annie brings Paul caviar and a bottle of Dom Pérignon to celebrate the approaching completion of Misery's Return.

Paul drops a lit match onto the lighter-fluid-soaked manuscript as Annie enters the room holding the champagne bottle.

Back in New York, Paul hallucinates Annie rising from behind his couch and attacking him with an axe before realizing it is make-believe.

From the moment Annie chose to drive an injured stranger to her farmhouse rather than a hospital, Paul's fate was shaped by a chain of pivotal decisions and hidden truths. Paul's clandestine escapes from his room reveal both Annie's meticulous trap — a disabled phone, Krieg locks, and surveillance via snapped hair threads — and his own growing resourcefulness in stealing medication and eventually a weapon. The novel Paul is forced to write becomes a genuine creative breakthrough, as he devises the catalepsy plot that gives Misery a believable resurrection and drives the story forward. Annie's confession about hitchhiker Pomeroy and the revelation that Paul's car has been swept away strip away his last illusions about accidental rescue. Paul methodically prepares his counterattack — secretly conditioning himself with the typewriter, hoarding lighter fluid behind a baseboard — while Annie arrives with caviar and champagne, oblivious to what he has planned. The violent climax and its traumatic New York aftermath leave Paul haunted by hallucinations of Annie, but the act of writing ultimately becomes his path back to himself.