Secret Window

Movie Name: Secret Window
Year of Release: 2004
Director: David Koepp
Starring: Johnny Depp, John Turturro, Maria Bello, Timothy Hutton, Charles S. Dutton, Len Cariou, Matt Holland, Elizabeth Marleau, Richard Jutras, John Dunn Hill
Genre: Thriller
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 4 
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Synopsis and Review:

Writer/Director David Koepp followed his "Stir of Echoes" with an adaptation of a novella by Stephen King, with the title "Secret Window, Secret Garden". Much like Stephen King's "The Dark Half", this narrative focuses on a successful writer, in this particular case, one by the name of Mort Rainey, who is going through a convoluted and painful divorce. Amy, his soon to be ex-wife has remained in their house, and already has a new partner, whereas Mort has isolated himself in a cabin upstate. One day while outside, he is confronted by a man from Mississippi, someone calling himself John Shooter. He claims Mort plagiarized his story. He threatens Mort and leaves his story behind. Mort realizes the stories are almost identical, save for the ending. The following day upon his return, Mort explains he couldn't have plagiarized the story, since his was written and published two years before Shooter's. Shooter demands proof, and as Mort goes to retrieve it at his former house, he also decides to hire a private investigator to help with the whole ordeal. As additional and dramatic events keep occurring and piling up, Mort finally comes to a realization that threatens his sanity and life itself.

"Secret Window" capitalized at the time of its debut, on the ascending attention Johnny Depp's career was experiencing at the time. He had just had a series of high profile films, including Lasse Hallstrom's "Chocolat", Ted Demme's "Blow", not to mention his first Academy Award nomination with Gore Verbinski's "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl", which started a tremendously successful franchise. "Secret Window" is a film that relies primarily on the quality of its cast, and in particular on the considerable talents from Johnny Depp. He always manages to make his characters alive, by adding nuances and quirkinesses that always make them watchable. The film itself, moderately illustrates the troubled times Mort is experiencing through the divorce, and his current writers block, but ultimately it fails to deliver a truly distinctive point of view on how these challenges have had a profound impact on the leading characters interior life (which ultimately manifests itself in his exterior life). It's interesting to compare for instance the treatment that Martin Scorsese did of these inner demons in "Shutter Island" and how this fairly routine approach in "Secret Window", fails to capitalize on both the cast and the potential of the story. In the end, for all its potential, the output is a fairly generic and quickly forgotten film, one that lacks a distinctive punch. A missed opportunity.