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Secret Window
A stressed-out novelist with writer's block is stalked by a psychotic stranger who accuses him of plagiarism. Johnny Depp stars in yet another Stephen King adaptation
The work of Stephen King - arguably the biggest-selling, most prolific novelist alive - is almost as recognised on screen as in print, with a world-record 70 films, TV movies and mini-series culled from more than 200 short stories and 40 novels. That's plenty, but still leaves a fair few originals untapped and so begs the question why a tale as second-hand as his novella 'Secret Window, Secret Garden' has been selected. When even classic books like 'Pet Sematary', 'The Stand' and 'It' have been horrifically mangled by their adaptations, below-average King is hardly likely to fare better. Bringing Johnny Depp - newly commercialised after his success in Pirates Of The Carribean - into the mix definitely livens things up, but even his offbeat presence can't juice up the squeezed-out husk of a storyline. King's preoccupation with novelists whose work comes back to haunt them has been comprehensively dealt with in Misery, The Dark Half and The Shining to name but three. From the moment sinister hick John Shooter (Turturro), part Amish, part redneck, turns up at the isolated woodland cabin of writer writer Mort Rainey (Deep), solemnly intoning "Yew stole mah stow-ree", everything seems strangely familiar. Rainey, of course, denies the theft. Shooter threatens him. First his dog is skewered; then his townhouse, where Rainey's wife Amy (Bello) is shacked up with her new lover Ted (Hutton), is burnt to the ground. The crime magazine proving that Rainey's story was published before Shooter wrote his manuscript stubbornly fails to materialise, just as the private investigator (Dutton) he sets on Shooter, mysteriously disappears. Yet during all this commotion, Rainey can still be found dozing in his threadbare dressing gown, on his tatty sofa. Is this a clue? To look at the film charitably, perhaps writer-director Koepp, usually found dreaming up fantastical blockbuster scenarios - Jurassic Park, Mission: Impossible, Spider-Man - wanted the challenge of making restrictive material breathe. To his credit there's a tense prologue where Rainey discovers Amy's infidelity and a superb tracking shot that ends literally through a looking glass. By the end, though, he seems to have run out of inspiration and falls back on hackneyed tricks for the final 'surprise' twist. There's a good deal more irony than intended in the repeated mantra about the importance of a story's ending, when you can see this one coming more clearly than a lighthouse in a blackout. It's left to Depp (the rest of the cast are strangely subdued) to embellish his own signature onto proceedings and no doubt he's chiefly responsible for Rainey's bedraggled hair, quirky speech patterns and slacker wardrobe. But he's fighting a losing battle. Isn't a secret supposed to be hidden information that's worth uncovering? This one takes ten minutes to crack and hardly seems worth passing on anyway. Verdict Depp's idiosyncrasies offer some welcome distractions but this entirely predictable thriller would be disappointing for an ITV drama, let alone a glossy Hollywood effort. |
