Secret Window

written for the screen and directed by David Koepp
based on the novella "Secret Window, Secret Garden" by Stephen King

            It is snowing at the beginning of Secret Window the latest adaptation of Stephen King that might remind some of Misery, arguably the finest thriller to come out from the author’s pages. Instead of leaving a motel and then crashing his vehicle, though, as does the protagonist of that story, Mort Rainey (Johnny Depp) crashes in on a motel room in which a couple’s lovemaking is interrupted. The connection between these people isn’t revealed but isn’t it obvious what is going on? Certainly it is to an intelligent audience deserving of and longing for such respect from a director.
             Fast forward, courtesy of a credit sequence and title card, to six months later. Rainey is alone, disheveled and unkempt, sleeping on a couch in his own cabin. As in Misery, the characters aren’t given the typical movie introduction. Before we know anything about this character he is pulled into dramatic circumstance involving a person who may indeed be insane. John Shooter (John Turturro), more Julian Beck than Kathy Bates, arrives at his door carrying a manuscript he claims was plagiarized by Rainey, a renowned author.
             The plot sweeps into its genre’s conventions, not without its murders, frame-ups and unsupportive authorities, yet for all its predictability, screenwriter/director David Koepp (The Trigger Effect) manages to keep things enjoyable at least. Laying out clues with his clever attention to detail and foreshadowing, knowledge of the film’s destination doesn’t detract from its scenic route. Though not as intricate as last summer’s Jack Sparrow, Depp’s Rainey is similarly more developed than is necessary but thoroughly appreciated for all the time focused on him. Most of the picture features the actor alone and he is a pleasure even in moments when he’s just eating from a bag of Doritos. While it is becoming a game to figure out whom he is channeling with each performance, at least some of the character is a return to the manic writer Hunter S. Thompson who he portrayed in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
                 Secret Window isn’t going to be remembered as fondly as Misery. Though foremost a screenwriter, Koepp’s strongest asset is not to be found on paper, his script here lacking an investment to its characters and relationships that William Goldman’s contains. The movie is worth noting more for its style and odd sense of humor that recall the lesser acclaimed works of Lynch and DePalma. Effective as comedy as much as a thriller, Secret Window pokes fun of King, surprise endings as well as itself. It proves, against its own characters’ statements and the current Hollywood trend that the ending is far from the most important feature of narrative cinema.