Secret Window

Review by: Alysa Salzberg AlysaSalzberg@TheCinemaSource.com

Leaving the theater after seeing Secret Window, I felt a mix of emotions "” elation, admiration, and bitter disappointment.

Let me explain.

First of all, I'll give you the facts: based on a Stephen King novella called Secret Window, Secret Garden, the movie is written and directed by David Koepp (who, as the ads say, also wrote Panic Room). It's the story of Mort Rainey (Johnny Depp, perhaps the only person in the world who a name like Mort wouldn't render automatically unsexy), a successful author, who's going through a painful divorce and writer's block. Basically, his life sucks. Mort spends the majority of his time in an isolated lake cabin, trying to write, but mostly burrowed deep in the pillows of his beat-up sofa, fast asleep with the phone unplugged. One day, things go from bad to worse, when a strange man named John Shooter (John Turturro) pounds on his door and accuses Rainey of stealing a story he's written. Mort vehemently denies it, but reluctantly reading Shooter's dog-eared manuscript, he can't deny the tales are more or less identical. Still, he knows he didn't copy Shooter's story. Nothing he can say, though, will slake Shooter's fury. The man's smooth Southern demeanor belies a wildly violent streak, and, to vent his anger or get his revenge on Mort, he will do some unspeakable things (if you're a screwdriver enthusiast, this is the flick for you). Yet what, exactly, does Shooter want? He claims he wants Rainey to change the story's ending (the only point where the two tales dramatically vary) and come clean about copying it, but there seems to be more to it than that. And if Rainey, who still insists he didn't steal the story, does cave in, will that be enough to make Shooter stop his horrible deeds and disappear from Rainey's life?

Now, I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I think Johnny Depp is an amazingly talented actor (not an outrageous thing to say in this time of Depp fever, but still sincere, and dating from well before his newfound mainstream popularity). Whether he's playing a highly unusual role in a highly unusual movie (Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood), or a regular guy in a more or less dull movie (remember Nick of Time?), Depp brings such an intensity to a role that you can't help but believe he is the character he's playing. In Secret Window, he continues that proud tradition. His Rainey is a frazzle-haired, miserable freak, whom we can still relate to (the scenes where Rainey has to deal with Ted (Timothy Hutton), the man his wife (Maria Bello) left him for, are priceless). And John Turturro, also a great actor, proves, as he did

in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, that, though it may not immediately strike you as a role for him to play, few men enjoy transforming into a hick, nor do it as well, as he.

It seems like we've got all the right elements here "” a film based on a story by a master of suspense and horror, brought to the screen by a man adept at portraying such things, and embodied by actors who thoroughly commit to their roles and know their stuff.

Yet, sadly, Secret Window doesn't turn out to be a great suspense/horror film. There's suspense aplenty "” though at times, the build-up is so agonizingly slow as to make the movie seem like it's in suspended animation. There's an abundance of horrific elements (grizzly murders, unexplained noises, and paranoia, anyone?). But what keeps this movie from reaching horror flick greatness is the simple fact that it's been done before. I'm not talking about the typically King-ian elements we get here (cornfields hiding secrets, stalkers, animals who seem to know more than you'd think, mysterious men) "” those are part of what draws us to stories by the master. It's the fact that, for all the hype, for all the things that make Secret Window seem like it would stand out from the flock of other thrillers out there, it drags us along, ultimately, to an ending that any fan of contemporary suspense whodunits "with a twist" would see coming a mile away. This is no fault of King's, nor, even, of Koepp's "” after all, as Rainey himself points out, to prove his originality, an author need only be able to tell the date of when he came up with his story. King's novel came out in 1991, well before our modern era of suspense turned in on itself. (If all this sounds a bit vague, it's deliberate: I don't want to give away any more than I have to by referring to other films that have similar endings to this one's.) Thus, the story was probably a surprising one in its time. The problem is that, now, it's been done and re-done, even in other genres. No one's to blame but the studio that greenlighted the film too late.

On the other hand, I would like to say that Secret Window shouldn't just be cast aside as an average suspense/thriller, albeit a well-acted one. Here's where my other feelings come in, those of elation and admiration. See, writing, as many have observed, is a lonely activity. It's also not one that plays very excitingly on screen. I mean, there are plenty of movies with writers in them, but rarely do we actually see them writing for an extended period of time. But in Secret Window we

see a great deal of Rainey's private writer's life. Here he is reading one of his sentences aloud to test it, here he is lecturing himself on the need to do away with bad writing, or telling himself to get back to work. Here he is sleeping, smoking, pacing around in an old bathrobe. These last three may or may not be the acts of a frightened, persecuted man "” but, at least in my experience, they are also a common experience of writers. And it's here that we get another King-ian motif: an exploration of writers and writing. It's all here "” Misery-esque fans, and characters and ideas that have transcended the writer's control. Of course, the tongue-in-cheek thing is that, when you're a writer, you are sort of persecuted and crazy. If not by and because of others, then because your own doubts and deep emotions make you so.

If you take Secret Window as it's being billed "” a cunning suspense/thriller, you'll probably be disappointed. If you take it another way it's being billed "” as a film starring Johnny Depp, you'll probably be happy "” though Mort Rainey is far from being one of Depp's most unique roles, the actor commits to the part and puts a fair amount of quirkiness into it. But if you look at Secret Window as a window into the mind of a writer, showing everything from daily rituals, boredom, frustrations, and triumphs, to the horrifying realization of his/her greatest doubts and fears, you'll find you have a pretty unique film on your hands.

Movie Grade: B-

Synopsis:Mort Rainey, a successful author, is passing through a hard period in his life. After catching his wife sleeping with another man, he divorces and moves away from the city to somewhere in the country. One day a man appears at his door, presenting himself as John Shooter, and accuses Mort of copying a story from him. Although Mort believes things can be solved once he shows Shooter the original version, which had appeared one year before Shooter’s version, he can’t seem to be able to get an original copy in the time limit set by Shooter. Strange things start happening which prevent him from recieving the needed original and Mort tries to find out who Shooter really is and if he is responsible for the things which happen.