As a general rule, the works of Stephen King don’t translate well to the screen (Cujo, Christine, and The Running Man stand out prominently in Hollywood’s history of hack jobs). Secret Window, from King’s novella Secret Window, Secret Garden, is a rare exception.
Morton Rainey (Johnny Depp) is going through a divorce. Having caught his wife Amy (Maria Bello) in bed with Ted (Timothy Hutton looking ageless as usual) at the local motel in the small town in upstate New York where the couple keeps a vacation home, Mort is clearly caught in the downslope of a serious depression. He stares at his computer screen for hours, his diet seeming to consist solely of comfort foods, and his daily nap growing to be his day and to be vastly more important than getting words down on paper. All that changes when John Shooter (John Turturro) arrives claiming that Mort has stolen his story.
The plot that unspools is an amalgam of a classic gaslight story and the modern-American stalker plot, with Shooter alternately terrorizing Mort and so eloquently demanding in his thick Mississippi accent that Mort provide tangible proof that his version of Secret Window was published before Shooter’s was put to paper.
Shot like a classic horror film, claustrophobic field of vision, strategic use of ambient noise as “silence,” Secret Window is ultimately not as spooky as trailers for the film lead you to believe. It’s a psychological thriller of the most standard kind, no slimy monsters from beyond, no zombie-fied townspeople secretly eating human flesh, but it’s a satisfying film. Performances from all the lead characters and from the supporting characters are good, but the film belongs to Depp for it is in his perception of the world that we end up seeing the real truth in the story.
Visually beautiful and well acted with the only down spot being the ingrained, abject fear Northeasterners have of those from the South, this film merits a 3 out of 5. 