Secret Window (2004)

the audience applauded

Overrated

A Major Disappointment

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Very good movie. In these days it is hard to see a good movie coming but this one is really great. Might have been inspiration for the game Alan Wake. Notice the name Rainy as a reference to snow, rain and weather. The movie is full of mystery and wonder. It makes you wonder why the world exists. Epic scenery of lucid dreaming is mixed with horrifying scenes of sublime and epic horror. The acting is very good as well.

If you want to know how does it feel to be drained as a writer, then watch this movie. The movie starts with a scene of "Depp" seeing his wife cheating on him in a motel, then we move to see glimpses of the boring life of a writer, it really shows how deep can a writer go while struggling for an idea to write.It's a psychological/thriller movie that will make you wonder throughout the movie, what makes this experience better is the great acting of "Depp".What makes this movie not that good is the kinda expected ending,However it's not explained what was "Depp" suffering from ! Is it schizophrenia ? Is it writer depression ?Finally, it's a good movie that you will enjoy both by acting and the story.

The theme is simple and quite common with Stephen King. He has often used it. A writer becomes suddenly due to some tension in his own life haunted by a doppelganger, his deeper self that he creates like a character in a story and the writer's life becomes a story, a perfect story. The doppelganger does all the writer wants to do, wants him to do for him. It's difficult to tell more without spoiling the story.You will recognize Stephen King's artful suspense when everything looks exactly like it is supposed to look and yet is just a surface that has nothing to do with reality but reality is invisible because it is all inside and when the iceberg tips out of the water it is all so well done no one can see this tip of the iceberg, let alone the iceberg.Johnny Depp is perfect for the job because he can be both extremely disrupted, corrugated or just insane and at the same time, or just a second later, perfectly sane, charming and adorable. He just needs to change glasses or change hats or change his smile because he always smiles from grinning to grimacing via all kinds of lovable smirks. All extremes seem natural to this man who can just shift from one to the other in less than one nanosecond. But altogether and in the end what does this short story turned long feature tell us about the world and life? Not much really except that writers are always living in a crazy world of their own and no one can understand that. They are unbearable in real life. They can have some nice moments but most of the time they live in their phantasms. And you cannot enter their minds. Luckily you can't and don't tell me you would like to. All that leads to dirty divorce procedures and eventually suits. Before the divorce all that leads to having lovers and intimate friends, making the writer jealous, in a way to both escape him and provoke him out of his writer's mind.At the very same time when you are dealing with a real writer who has a genial doppelganger, both genie and genius, the police will be helpless for at least some long, long time, because the police with all their crime scene investigation and their forensics cannot sort out the mind of an author who is not a serial killer and thus cannot be profiled. In fact his crimes are the only way he has to be reborn in a new life and there will be no series in that bloody episode.You should like it if you let yourself go into the story as if it were true, real, life incarnate. And Johnny Depp should be able to make you believe you have entered a completely true and real world. The phantasms are only the cherry on top of the pie and the ice cream for it to be à la mode.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Johnny Depp is the one that makes this movie watchable. Overall, this is a pretty mundane and predictable movie. The mystery wasn't all that exciting and it just felt dry to sit through. When I saw this movie when I was in my early teen, I thought thought it was a alright flick. And didn't really know what direction the plot was headed. But watching it now, I don't know how I missed how it would end. It's difficult to anticipate what is going to happen next, when you are so sure what the twist is. So for the most part I was like "when is it going to get to the twist already" because this movie seems to be heavily focused on the predictable twist. If the build up was at least more interest or enticing I would have stayed focused. But for the most part, this movie can put you to sleep. It's worth only one watch since you won't miss anything by just seeing it once. And seeing it a second time won't add anything.4.6/10