Stephen King’s Intense And Isolated Psychological Thriller Twists Its Audience Into Submission

By Robert Scucci
| Published 3 seconds ago

Having recently read Stephen King’s memoir, On Writing, I’m well aware of how damaging writer’s block can be for an author, which is the topic of discussion in his 1990 short story, “Secret Window, Secret Garden.” Adapted into the 2004 Johnny Depp-starring feature film entitled Secret Window, we get a rare occurrence in which King took a largely hands-off approach, allowing writer and director David Koepp to take the reins and retell the story as a mind-bending psychological thriller that I feel is an underappreciated adaptation of King’s work.

As someone who has no qualms about a filmmaker deviating from the source material, I felt it was high time to give this film a second look, because, despite its commercial success, it only has a 46 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

At the end of the day, Secret Window falls into the same narrative traps most psychological thrillers of the era fall into, but the chemistry between Johnny Depp and John Turturro alone makes this one worth a watch. Its third-act reveal is predictable, sure, but enough creative liberties are taken to give a by-now overdone premise more redeeming qualities than you might expect.

Another Cabin In The Woods Story

Secret Window is yet another psychological thriller about a writer trying to finish his next mystery thriller, but can’t because life is wearing him down. On the verge of finalizing his divorce, Mort Rainey (Johnny Depp) isolates himself in upstate New York as a means to run away from his problems. Not only has his ex-wife, Amy (Maria Bello) come clean about her affair with Ted Milner (Timothy Hutton), Mort is suffering from a brutal case of writer’s block and depression and spends most of his time puttering around, not accomplishing much on a day-to-day basis. Mort’s life is further upended when he’s approached by a Kentucky man named John Shooter (John Turturro), who does not mince words while accusing him of plagiarizing his short story, “Sowing Season.”

Initially brushing off John’s claims, Mort eventually reads the man’s manuscript, only to find that his own previously published story, “Secret Window,” is an almost identical retelling of it. Convinced he’s being stalked by a crazed fan, Mort remembers that his story actually predates John Shooter’s by a couple of years, but doesn’t have physical proof on him in the form of the original publication. Forced to contact Amy to get a copy and hopefully get John off his back, Mort is meanwhile threatened by the man, who warns him that he has three days to make good on his proof that he didn’t steal the story, or he’ll face the consequences.

Paranoid, tired, and strung out, Mort slowly loses his grip on reality as John Shooter’s presence consumes his consciousness. He even begins to doubt his own claims that he hadn’t plagiarized the man, since he’d gotten in similar trouble in the past for doing just that with another author’s work and had recently settled out of court with somebody else who made similar accusations that ultimately proved to be baseless.

Does All The Tropes, But Does Them Well

Secret Window does the same thing that every single psychological thriller of this era does in the sense that we’re not supposed to fully trust Mort’s version of reality at face value. He’s seeing and hearing things that may not necessarily be real, but something about John Shooter feels different as the mystery continues to unravel. One distinction worth noting is how drastically different Mort’s ending to “Secret Window” is compared to “Sowing Season,” which also works as a clean analog to Koepp’s interpretation of King’s work. It’s true to form until we reach the third act, and then Koepp shifts gears in a way that mirrors Mort’s rewritten ending.

As by-the-numbers as Koepp’s third-act reveal may feel by today’s standards, he has a lot of fun getting there. Thanks to Johnny Depp’s on-screen interactions with John Turturro, we get a thriller that subverts expectations as much as it validates them. The acting talent alone in this tense story makes it worth a watch because Depp and Turturro fully explore the tension and territory as the premise pushes into an increasingly unhinged place, imagined or real.

Secret Window is streaming for free on Pluto.