Although imperfect, the recent AppleTV adaptation of Stephen King’s most autobiographical stories.
That said, the book and subsequent miniseries are far from being a memoir. For one thing, the character most comparable to King in Lisey’s Story, Scott Landon, is dead before the miniseries even begins. From beyond the grave Scott sends his wife on a sort of treasure hunt to discover his dark, complex past, and this provides the main story of the miniseries (with an obsessive fan’s attempts to hunt down his wife being the secondary subplot).
The miniseries adaptation of Lisey’s Story is far from flawless, but with Stephen King adapting his book, he adds some effective new moments to the original novel without changing the spirit of the story. Touches like the magical yo-yo and the brutal cutting scene in episode 3 (both absent in the source novel), along with King’s stellar ending for the otherwise-uneven 2020 adaptation of The Stand, prove that the author has matured enough as a screenwriter to understand how to translate his novels to the screen while also knowing what to cut and what to keep. King has a mixed history when it comes to screenwriting, but these recent efforts show a marked improvement in the author’s abilities.
Early on in his career, King was critical of screen adaptations that he felt failed his texts, with the author famously hating Kubrick’s movie version of Maximum Overdrive, a critically and commercially disastrous adaptation of his short story “Trucks” that led King to vow he would steer clear of the director’s chair for the foreseeable future.
However, while Maximum Overdrive may not be an underrated classic, King’s additions to Lisey’s Story flesh out the original text and add some vital tension and stakes to the somewhat meandering source novel’s plot. Episode 3’s violent scene during Amanda’s hospital stay makes for upsetting viewing, but it’s a brutal moment that ensures the (at this point) vague supernatural fantasy elements of the series don’t completely crowd out the sense of escalating dread throughout Lisey’s Story. Many of King’s greatest monsters from Randall Flagg to Pennywise fuse fantasy elements with grim horror, but this unexpectedly realistic shock pulls the otherwise-fantastical Lisey’s Story back down to earth with a bang. It’s a well-judged addition, and one that proves Lisey’s Story scribe Stephen King should bring more of his work to life despite his earlier misgivings about the process of adaptation.