Secret Window (2004)


When it comes to successful Stephen King film adaptations the novella collection Different Seasons was the source for three of the best.  While King was never too happy writing novellas - he talks about in length in the introductions to both Different Seasons and Four Past Midnight - he seems in his element with them.  I have always liked King's short stories because they force him to properly end the tale, as do his novellas as well.  It is in his longer pieces that he tends to have problems nailing the ending. 

Four Past Midnight was released in 1990.  At that point, though Different Seasons was critically well-received, the only movie released from it had been Stand by Me, which was based on The Body.  That was still enough reason to release a second collection and, unlike the first, this one stayed more within the horror genre.  From this came The Langoliers, which had a so-so television miniseries adaptation in the 1990s, but also a couple of his best unfilmed stories, The Library Policeman and The Sun Dog.  It also contained a more realistic psychological thriller called Secret Window, Secret Garden. 

Author Mort Rainey (Johnny Depp) is going through difficult times.  His wife Amy (Maria Bello) had an affair with a man named Ted (Timothy Hutton) and is divorcing him, forcing him out of his home.  He has writer's block and is drinking heavily.  One day while trying to sleep there is a knock at the door.  A man named John Shooter (John Turturro) arrives claiming that Rainey stole his story.  Despite Mort's protests that he has proof he wrote the story before Shooter did.  Despite being confronted with this fact Shooter demands to see for himself and threatens to tear apart Rainey's life if he doesn't produced the magazine that published it.

As he tries to get that proof things begin to spiral out of control.  Shooter starts aggressively attacking Mort and the people in his life, to the point where he becomes sure that Ted hired Shooter to force him into finalizing the divorce but that the man has gone out of control.  Finding himself further isolated, Rainey decides to take matters into his own hands.

Secret Window, Secret Garden was an okay story and the weakest in Four Past Midnight.  It is not surprising that an okay story translates into an okay movie.  Secret Window was written and directed by David Koepp who, although a great screenwriter, is probably best known for directing Jurassic Park III: The Lost World.  That was merely okay as well.

Part of the problem with Secret Garden itself is that Koepp changed the ending.  Although much more based in reality than the other stories King still included some supernatural elements that he would later explore in his novel The Dark Half.  Koepp, rather than referencing that - especially with Timothy Hutton on board, who had played the lead role in George A. Romero's adaptation of that novel - goes for the most cliched Hollywood ending he could.  It's a cop out, and one that unfortunately has been used by much better directors.  It didn't work for them, and it definitely doesn't work here.

John Turturro is definitely trying to do the campy villain routine with Shooter and, honestly, I don't know exactly what Depp is trying to do.  I think he's trying to figure it out as he goes along.  He can be wonderful in films when he is given proper direction, but one can always tell when he's just told to wing it.  He is also too much of a movie star to believe he would be one of King's down-on-his-luck author types.  Depp belongs playing pirates, not this.  

Secret Window isn't terrible, and I found it a bit better on second viewing, probably because I already knew the ending and wasn't going to be disappointed.  Still, this wasn't a popular film in 2004, and I can't see why, other than someone being a Depp or King completist, it would matter much now.  

Secret Window (2004)
Time: 96 minutes
Starring: Johnny Depp, John  Turturro, Maria Bello, Timothy Hutton
Director: David Koepp

 

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