Tags:
Film: Secret Window
Year: 2004
Director: David Koepp
Writer: David Koepp
Starring: Johnny Depp, Maria Bello and John Turturro
Review:
This is a movie that I remember seeing on DVD soon after it came out. It is interesting that I didn’t see this in the theater. My guess would be that it was a stretch where life was busy since it would have been the spring going into my senior year of high school. I know this was one that I sought out being a Stephen King fan, who wrote the original story.
Synopsis: a successful writer during a painful divorce is stalked at his remote lake house by a would-be scribe who accuses him of plagiarism.
We start this off with an odd tense scene with no context. Mort Rainey (Johnny Depp) is in a car in the winter. He is leaving a motel when he stops, turns around and drives to a room. He gets out to confront a couple in bed, Amy (Maria Bello) and Ted Milner (Timothy Hutton). What we will learn is that Amy is Mort’s wife. She had an affair with Ted and this was how he confronted them.
This incident is now in the past. Mort is living at their lake house while the couple is staying in the house that belongs to them. Our lead character is struggling. He sleeps during the day and has writer’s block. He’s not doing much to take care of himself. Things all change when he hears a knock at the door. There he finds John Shooter (John Turturro) who claims that Mort stole his story. Mort is shocked at what he hears and denies the allegations. John leaves his story and will come back when Mort has time to process.
What I’ll also include here is that this isn’t the first time that Mort has been accused. He is a successful writer, but there was another incident where similar allegations were made and that person was paid off. Mort tells Amy and she wants to know if there is any truth about what is being said. He still denies it. Mort does meet with John, figuring out that his story came out first. John is willing to give up his case if Mort can prove it. He doesn’t believe it and what he wants is simple, he claims that Mort ruined the ending as he feels his is perfect. Mort drags his feet on getting a copy of the magazine, he also involves Ken Karsch (Charles S. Dutton), who helped him in the past. John isn’t messing around though and Mort seems to be underestimating the lengths he’ll go.
That is where I’ll leave my recap and introduction to the characters. Where I want to start is something with King. There is the ongoing commentary that he doesn’t know how to end his stories. He has gone on record to say that the ending to The Mist movie was better than what he wrote. He even pokes fun at himself in It: Chapter 2. It is quite interesting that this came out when it did and the story was written before that where a writer character that he likes to use struggles with something that he most likely had already heard at this point. I thought that was an interesting meta commentary.
Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, there isn’t much to this story. You can break it down like the synopsis did that Mort is going through a nasty divorce and things get worse when John shows up to accuse him of plagiarism. This is a character study of our lead from there. What makes this work as well is that Depp is a great actor at playing these oddball characters. Since there are stretches where Mort is alone, we see him talking to himself and we’re even getting into his mind where there will be two of him interacting. That works for me, especially when we’re dealing with a character as unstable as Mort. It just seems like one more thing pushing him over the edge.
Let me then shift slightly here that even though the story isn’t deep and we’re focusing more on this character, there are things that if you’re paying attention help piece the story together more. Mort starts to believe that John could have been sent here by Ted. Amy and Ted just want Mort to sign the divorce papers to end this. He won’t do it though. Mort asks Amy early on if she told Ted about the plagiarism allegations and she denies revealing that. Ted says that he’s from a place called Shooter’s Bay. There is one reveal that I wish could have been incorporated in, but I understand why it wasn’t. It would give everything away. That is saved for the reveal. I do enjoy that this story is a mentally unstable character has even more piled on to him, pushing him to crack more.
Since the focus of the movie is Mort and his ordeal with John, let me discuss the rest of the cast. Bello is interesting here. I don’t like her for cheating on her husband. She did say that the marriage was over long before she started seeing Ted, but Mort wasn’t aware. She still becomes a sympathetic character. She wants the best for Mort and ending their marriage is part of that. Turturro is great here as well. Interestingly, he doesn’t have a lot of screentime. When he does it is important and then it becomes a specter of what he’ll do next, which I like. Hutton is fine as this man who is now seeing Mort’s wife. Dutton is solid in his role. I just love how confident he is and where his subplot ends up. Outside of that, the rest of the cast was solid and fit what was needed.
All that is left is filmmaking. I thought that the setting, cinematography and framing were good. This mostly takes place in Mort’s cabin where he’s alone. There is that isolated feel. We see that he’s in a state of depression so that loneliness isn’t good. Things are framed well and credit to the cinematography, we are thinking there could be someone hiding around corners. The use of mirrors was good there. This just builds an atmosphere of fear where we don’t know what John will do next. We don’t know who is working with him either. I thought that worked. There are surreal things and playing out what is going on in Mort’s mind. I liked that touch, especially where things end up. Other than that, I thought the soundtrack was fine for what was needed.
In conclusion, I enjoy this movie. It is an interesting King property to bring to life and I think that it is done well. What is interesting here is that we have Depp cast as the lead. They make him look like he’s struggling, but he’s still a good-looking guy. He manages roles like this well. I thought the rest of the cast pushed him to where he ended up. There are good things with filmmaking to not only to develop the atmosphere needed but show and tell things in interesting ways. An intriguing one to rewatch if you come in blind for the first time and look for clues. There is only one thing that feels like a cheat, but no other way to incorporate it in. I enjoy this film and would recommend it.
My Rating: 7.5 out of 10