Secret Window (2004)

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Purely Joyful Movie!

Boring, long, and too preachy.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Stephan King's repertoire is certainly an expansive one, though his name is almost always associated with the horror genre. On many occasions however, he has told stories less on the super-natural, and more on regular people who struggle through emotional turmoil's and how it affects their life; such is the case with his 1990 novella 'Secret Window, Secret Garden' This story would later be adapted into the screenplay by David Koepp for the 2004 thriller flick 'Secret Window'The film stars Jonny Depp as Mort Rainey, an author of numerous novellas and novels who is suffering from writers-block due to him being in the middle of making his divorce official. On top of this, one day he receives a visit by a man named John Shooter (John Turturro) who accuses his of plagiarising a novella he himself wrote some time ago. From here on out, it's up to Mort to find evidence that his own story was published before Shooter's all while being terrorised by his obsessive fellow writer.As well as writing the screenplay, this film marked Koepp's third directorial feature and has a fascinating use of juxtaposing the film's mise-en-scene. Koepp uses very warm colours in his film, putting heavy emphasis on the yellows and oranges, in order to highlight the peacefulness of the Lake-side setting. This would seem like a direct contrast to the codes and conventions of the thriller genre if it wasn't for the night time scenes. One such of these scenes, includes having a fog roll in while a confrontation is taking place between Mort and Shooter. This leads to one of the most intense moments in the movie only second to the climactic finale – which ironically takes place in broad daylight.The ending of this film however, I do have mixed feelings about as it is reflected through the ending of Mort's finally completed book. This isn't the problem, the problem is that Mort's final statement is that "the only thing that matters is the ending… and this one is very good". This makes the film feel very pretentious and self-absorbed as the ending, while clever, seems diminished when the film seems too proud of its own content – therefore becomes less effect.All in all, however, this truly is a strong picture – far more so, than any of Steven King's TV mini-series specials (such as IT) – and think it may also feature Depp's strongest ever performance in a film.

This is a rubbishy, cheesy B-movie that attempts to ride on the coat-tails of other 'twist' ending movies like THE MACHINIST and FIGHT CLUB, borrowing liberally from those two movies without ever taking itself seriously enough to be effective. As a result the film is goofy and predictable throughout, hindered by another 'kooky' turn from the increasingly stale Johnny Depp, and a script that spoon-feds the story to mindless viewers in an attempt to pull the rug out from under their feet. The problem is that the twist becomes startlingly obvious about ½ way through the film and the final scenes, while attempting to portray psychological disturbance, end up more like a silly rerun of the Michael Keaton flick MULTIPLICITY than the serious drama that they want to be.While Depp is boring, he's supported by a lot of decent actors. John Turturro makes for a suitably imposing bad guy and Charles S. Dutton, well he brings the screen to life as always. One of my favourite performances comes from Timothy Hutton, whose presence is a nod to another Stephen King adaptation, THE DARK HALF, in which he starred. The only bad thing is that he serves as a reminder that even this King novella is a rubbishy, half-developed version of an altogether better book and better film. Meanwhile, the less said about the disappointing Maria Bello, the better.While this film does start off quite well – despite the predictably of yet ANOTHER King offering with a weirdo writer as the leading character – things fall apart so badly as the story progresses. David Koepp, reasonably efficient in the past, lets the cabin-in-the-woods setting get to his head and poorly experiments with camera angles in an attempt to recreate the success of THE EVIL DEAD. There's a ludicrous rip on THE SHINING at the film's climax and, while it deserves kudos for going through with a murder that I thought it never would, it's clear that this should have had a harder rating, with severed heads and arterial blood to add to the horror aspect. As it is, the horror is lukewarm and rehashed, and aside from one good car-over-the-cliff scene, it sucks.

It was based on the novel, though the original title makes more sense than this film. Maybe they wanted to avert the spoiler. But I don't think it would have affected much, because the twist comes at the final segment. The tale of a writer who is in the middle of divorce and now living alone is the lake house got threatened by a stranger, because according to him he stole his story. Followed by many unpleasant events, how he gets out of the trouble told in the next half.Feels just an okay kind. Though Johnny Depp was good. The suspense was good, particularly in the first half, but later it comes falling down. The second half was average, the twist was not interesting enough. After some point, you might predict it, but the point is it was too familiar. I especially did not like the finale, it was like not in detail. Still a watchable film, because of the actor and for decently made. So I think worth a watch if you keep a low expectation.6/10

Secret Window is a 2004 American psychological thriller film starring Johnny Depp and John Turturro. It was written and directed by David Koepp, based on the novella Secret Window, Secret Garden by Stephen King,[1] featuring a musical score by Philip Glass and Geoff Zanelli. The story appeared in King's collection Four Past Midnight. The film was released on March 12, 2004, by Columbia Pictures, and was a modest box office success despite receiving mixed reviews from critics.Johnny Depp as Morton "Mort" Rainey / John Shooter John Turturro as "John Shooter" Maria Bello as Amy Rainey Timothy Hutton as Ted "Teddy" Milner Len Cariou as Sheriff Dave Newsome Charles S. Dutton as Private Investigator Ken Karsch John Dunn Hill as Tom Greenleaf Chico as himselfMy short Review: best script! great actor! nothing more to say -> love this movie.