This week's friendly neighborhood red envelope brought Secret Window, which I specifically remember being part of an overlapping couplet of Johnny Depp movies that I had never seen (including the aforementioned Tim Burton's Corpse Bride). I was also interested in seeing the movie because it was based on a Stephen King novel, and I've enjoyed some of the film adaptations of his novels; though, granted, some of them have been abysmally uninteresting as well. What I didn't realize was that this film was based on the novella "Secret Window, Secret Garden," which was part of the Four Past Midnight collection (which included the confusing "Langoliers"), and which I had read, many moons ago. In fact, and I would have to look at the book to be sure, this novella was my favorite of the four compiled stories, and the minute the opening credits rolled, I remembered the plot twist ending like a hazy epiphany, bursting forth from the recesses of my memory. As such, I watched the movie with interest to see how the details unfolded and to confirm my suspicions as to whether or not I was accurate in my memory but was otherwise underwhelmed by the film because I remembered the ending. Of course, to be fair, I was also underwhelmed by the rest of the film in general.
Dreamy Johnny plays Mort Rainey, a down-on-his-luck writer who is living alone in his summer cabin while he undergoes a painful divorce from his soon-to-be ex-wife Amy (Maria Bello). One day, amidst the doldrums of his depression, a man named John Shooter (John Turturro) appears at his doorstep claiming that Mort plagarized his story, which essentially tells the tale from a murderer's perspective of how the main character offed his wife. Mort denies the plagarism wholeheartedly; however, Mr. Shooter has other, more psychotic ideas in mind. Mort realizes just how serious Shooter is when he discovers a screwdriver driven through the once-alive carcass of his pet dog, and that his house has been broken into on more than one occasion. Shooter indicates that unless Mort can produce the original manuscript/publication of his story, Shooter will take more extreme measures to make his point. The trouble is, the closer Mort gets to the manuscript and to trying to prove his innocence, the more Shooter seems to thwart him at every turn, as if he is dogging his very footsteps, and Mort can't figure out how he does it, even as his time is running out.
I remember that when reading the book, I found it gripping and the twist oddly satisfying. In every way, this was sort of the perfect Stephen King story - depicting the tale of an author's worst nightmare, which was fitting given the particular author. The trouble is, such a story doesn't translate to screen all that well. The pacing was very slow, and there was little urgency to the dangers Mort was experiencing, not only in the way Dreamy Johnny portrayed the Mort character but in the way the film was directed. Since I knew what ending was on the horizon, I tried to pay attention to little details, like moments of foreshadowing, or how clues to the mystery of the ultimate stalker were provided. I was unsuccessful, only because the director, David Koepp, who was also the screenwriter, didn't pay attention to the little details either. The end result was that the film was boring, the surreal quality that I think was attempted was not achieved, and even if I had not known the ending, I would have been only slightly less underwhelmed by the film's conclusion.
Dreamy Johnny and John Turturro gave decent performances, though some of Mort's character quirks struck me as Captain Jack Sparrow-ish (this film was released one year after the first Pirates film), including some odd facial expressions that simply made me want to adorn Mort in dreadlocks and a pirate hat. Both actors' individual senses of strange, which seems to infuse most of their roles, were well-matched, and the best scenes contained both actors. Yet, the material, from the adaptation's perspective and from the limits of this particular director (whose other most famous credit is Stir of Echoes, apparently), did not make good or effective use of either actor's talents.
In addition, none of the other production values were truly notable. The cinematography combined some standard point-and-shoot with some perspective filming (Koepp liked to use the multi-levels of Mort's cabin by including a fair few overheard shots). The score was underwhelming - subtle and occasionally melodramatic - and probably further served to detract from any possible thrills for which this film was striving. In fact, there was nothing particularly artistically interesting about the picture itself.
So, when there's little appreciable artistic quality, I have to rely on my gut feelings about how entertained I was to evaluate the film, and, in fact, I was bored. I probably would have been less bored if I had not known the ending, but the film would still have been slow and fairly pedestrian, and since I nearly fell asleep, I'm sure the ending as a mystery revealed would not have assuaged that sleepy feeling if I managed to stay awake. As such, I feel this film merits a 5 for being utterly mediocre; despite the competence of Johnny and John in their respective roles, the film, as a whole, was thoroughly uninteresting. Also, clearly, it does not pass the test, even if it might cure insomnia in a drug-free way. For would-be viewers, I recommend reading the novella instead and saving yourself time and money because if you're expecting thrills, Secret Window reveals few to none.