Review of Secret Window (2004) by Mirabella 1 — 06 Feb 2010

Occasionally, there's a Stephen King work that botches it up, and this usually goes for the likes of awful straight-to-DVD movies or a TV mini-series. But sometimes, a feature length film with movie stars can botch it up and suck just as much. Look no further than Secret Window, a movie whose potential disintegrates by the third act with a 180 for an ending that does little for support beforehand.

Depp plays a successful writer in the process of a divorce from his cheating whore wife (Bello), who is screwing what used to be his best friend (Hutton). Secluding himself in a remote cabin, a stranger (Turturro) with a southern drawl that looks like he stepped out of Amish country, shows up on his doorstep and accuses the writer of plagiarizing his story, and starts "haunting" him for justice.

The movie looked good, it's based on a Stephen King book, it had an interesting premise and a really good cast. But what goes wrong with the movie is that it's all a buildup to an ending that either one, is meant to surprise an audience or two, makes one wonder what the point of the whole movie was, given that the clues leading up to it were revealed too late and referred too little throughout the film. Even Depp, Turturro and the rest of the cast (which also includes Charles Dutton as Depp's confidant agent) can't save the film, but only go along with it to the best of their abilities, which is good. But there's two thirds of a good movie here, before the last third falls apart. I was confused by the fact that this movie is either a straight thriller or a horror movie, and if anything, the ending indicates what kind of movie it is, and I'll tell you what it was for me: a sucky one.