Film

Secret Window (2004)

Director: David Koepp

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Six months back, fiction writer Mort Rainey (Depp) found his wife in bed with another man. Now he can't bring himself to sign the divorce papers, much less get a single sentence going on his new story. The white glare of the blank laptop keeps driving him back into the arms of his couch, where he sleeps away most days in a gnarly bathrobe - until naptime is interrupted by John Shooter (Turturro) pounding on the door of Mort's upstate cabin like the Day of Judgment. Shooter accuses the dishevelled author of plagiarism and gives him three days to prove otherwise, although the bodies start piling up immediately. Mort and Shooter - what's in a name? While we're at it, where are the police? Why does Mort return night after night to his isolated, ill-secured house with a psycho around? To be sure, the film (adapted from a novella by Stephen King) is never less than pulpy, preposterous fun, thanks almost entirely to its ingenious star: Depp always gives generously, no matter the cause. But writer/director Koepp unveils the inevitable Big Twist as a too convenient excuse for plot-holes, implausibilities and Mort's stunning errors of judgment. And the deranged last reel flounders under a crippling debt to The Shining. JWin.

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