Secret Window
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Secret Window | |
|---|---|
 Secret Window film poster |
|
| Directed by | David Koepp |
| Produced by | Gavin Polone, Ezra Swerdlow |
| Written by | Stephen King (novel), David Koepp |
| Starring | Johnny Depp, John Turturro, Maria Bello |
| Distributed by | Sony Pictures Entertainment |
| Release date(s) | March 12, 2004 |
| Running time | 96 min |
| Language | English |
| Budget | ~ US$40,000,000 |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Secret Window is a 2004 thriller starring Johnny Depp and John Turturro. It was written and directed by David Koepp, based on the novella Secret Window, Secret Garden by Stephen King. The story appeared in King's collection Four Past Midnight. The film's studio is Columbia Pictures along with Sony Pictures.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Johnny Depp plays successful writer Mort Rainey, who is suffering from writer's block and has retreated to an isolated lakeside cabin in the face of a divorce from his wife, Amy (Maria Bello). The source of the divorce is Mort having made the unfortunate discovery of his wife cheating on him with Ted Milner (Timothy Hutton), now her boyfriend. Living alone in the woods, Mort is confronted one day by the mysterious John Shooter (John Turturro) who accuses him of plagiarism: they have both written almost identical stories, Mort's "Secret Window" and Shooter's "Sowing Season."
The movie follows Mort's struggles to prove conclusively to Shooter and to himself that he has not plagiarised the story. As the story progresses, Shooter murders a private investigator (Charles S. Dutton) who Mort had hired to investigate Shooter, and a local man who was the only person to see them together. He also burns down the house of Mort's soon-to-be ex-wife as well as murdering his dog Chico. Ted is convinced that Mort is the culprit responsible for the burning.
Mort eventually locates the magazine that proves he published "Secret Window" before Shooter wrote "Sowing Season." But when Mort gets the magazine, he finds that the story has been cut out. Mort's inner voice tells him that since the magazine was sent to him in a sealed UPS package, Shooter could not have tampered with it. Prompting from his own conscience leads Mort to the realization that Shooter is not real, only a figment of Mort's imagination brought so vividly to life through undetected dissociative identity disorder to personify the dark side of Mort's personality and to commit acts that Mort himself feels he could not commit (murder, arson). During this revelation, his concerned ex-wife drives up to his cabin, and at that instant he changes his persona from the well-meaning Mort to the murderous Shooter. He then kills his ex-wife and her lover, Ted, with a shovel and buries them in a garden where he later plants a crop of corn. Afterwards Mort changes profoundly, his writer's block finally over and his passion for life returned. The movie, however, ends on a rather sinister note. The local sheriff informs Mort that he knows what he did and as soon as they find the bodies, he'll go to prison. Mort dismisses the statement nonchalantly, and replies that "the ending is the most important part of the story. This one is perfect." It is then revealed to us that by growing and consuming corn from the garden where his ex-wife and her lover are buried, Mort is slowly destroying all the evidence needed to incriminate him bit by bit.
It should be noted that this ending is almost the exact opposite of the novella's ending. In the original story, Rainey's wife discovers Mort's madness, and Mort is killed, not his ex-wife and her fiance. The story, which up to this point has been a totally non-supernatural tale, takes on a slightly more spooky tone, as it is revealed in a short postscript that Mort's ex-wife has received a letter from Shooter, telling her that he is returning to Mississippi to write a new novel. This letter is sent to her, after Mort has been killed, suggesting that Shooter has taken on a life of his own.
[edit] Cast
- Johnny Depp – Mort Rainey
- John Turturro – John Shooter
- Maria Bello – Amy Rainey
- Timothy Hutton – Ted Milner
- Charles S. Dutton – Ken Karsch
- Len Cariou – Sheriff Dave Newsome
- Joan Heney – Mrs. Garvey
- John Dunn Hill – Tom Greenleaf
- Vlasta Vrana – Fire Chief Wickersham
- Matt Holland – Detective Bradley
- Gillian Ferrabee – Fran
- Kyle Allatt – Busboy
[edit] Differences from the Novella
- In the novella, Mort Rainey has a cat who is killed by Shooter named Bump. He never had a dog.
- The confrontation he has with Ted on the street never occurred.
- In the novella, the magazine containing Mort's story is burned along with Amy's house. In the movie, the house is burnt, along with the magazines, however, Mort then has his publicist send him the other copies of the magazine.
- In the novella, Mort is shot and killed seconds before he murders Amy. However, at the end of the movie, he kills both Ted and Amy and buries them in his garden.
- In the novella, it is revealed the name 'John Shooter', is a combination of names. John was the name of an old classmate he stole a story from and got away with. Shooter comes from the name of the Tennessee town in which Ted grew up - Shooter's Knob. Ted's Southern accent is the subconcious reason Shooter's Mississippi drawl so irritates Mort.
- In the novella, Mort's story is called "Sowing Season", and Shooter's is "Secret Window, Secret Garden". In the film, it is reversed. It is unknown why the change was made.
- The novella takes place near the fictional King setting of Derry, Maine. The movie shifts the setting to upstate New York.
[edit] Trivia
- Alternative rock band Brand New got the title for their song "Sowing Season (Yeah)" from the name of Mort's story.
- While Depp awakens from his nap and imagines himself falling onto rocks below, the ocean/rock background footage was shot for but not used in The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
- A mantle clock is shown several times in the film. Next to the clock is a copy of the Tom Robbins novel Villa Incognito
- A book by Hunter S. Thompson is shown on Mort's coffee table after he awakens from one of his naps. (Johnny Depp previously portrayed Thompson in Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas.)
- Originally, the film was to end with the camera continuing it's pan down into the cornfield, showing Ted and Amy's decaying bodies. Koepp decided against this, feeling that it was too gruesome. The footage can be found in the deleted scenes section of the DVD.
- When Mort forcefully removes Amy from her car, it takes longer for her to hit the ground, than it does for her car to hit the tree.
- Timothy Hutton (Ted) played Thad Beaumont, a writer struggling against the emodiement of his pseudonym, in the similarily themed Stephen King movie The Dark Half (film)
