Secret Window: Movie, DVD Review

Written and directed by David Koepp, based Stephen King's novella "Secret Window, Secret Garden,” rated PG-13, 106 minutes.

(Originally published 2004)

In spite of what its misleading television ads suggest, “Secret Window” isn’t a horror movie and it has nothing to do with the supernatural, though it likely will leave some audience members chilled.

On the surface, the film appears to have a lot going for it. It’s based on a Stephen King novella, “Secret Window, Secret Garden”; it was written and directed by David Koepp, who wrote “Spider-Man,” “Panic Room,” and who wrote and directed “Stir of Echoes”; and it stars Johnny Depp in the lead.

Sounds good, so why is it so uninvolving?

One reason is that everyone involved has grown beyond the material. King has worked variations of this story to death in other, better works; Koepp is ready to branch away from adaptations and once again direct his own original projects; and Depp is in need of a departure, a movie that skirts his crowdpleasing quirks and shows off fresh sides of his talent.

Unlike King’s “Misery” and “The Shining,” which “Window” most closely resembles, “Secret Window” isn’t grounded in any sense of believability, which harms it, and its script, by Koepp, is mere scaffolding. The film’s seriocomic tone also doesn’t help, nor does the sense that no one here is taking the movie seriously. All involved are coasting, and as a result, the movie follows suit.

In the film, Depp is Mort Rainey, a popular novelist whose marriage to Amy (Maria Bello) collapsed long before he caught her in bed with Ted (Timothy Hutton). Still, seeing them together has left Mort in the throes of a six-month depression.

Unable to write and holed up in his lakeside retreat, he’s facing divorce and on the verge of a nervous breakdown when into his life comes the mysterious John Shooter (John Turturro), an angry Mississippian with a slick Southern drawl who accuses Mort of plagiarizing one of his stories.

Not unlike Annie Wilkes in “Misery,” Shooter demands that Mort do some rewriting, with particular attention paid to the ending, which he wants Ted to fix or he’ll fix Ted and everyone else in his life.

All of this builds to a “twist” that’s telegraphed from the film’s first tracking shot. Pay attention, and Koepp reveals everything to you. If you miss it, not to worry. The film’s obvious plot elements only lead to one outcome, which in this case proves especially violent.

Grade: C