(This entry gives away the entire twist in the film Secret Window, partially as a warning to anyone who may go to see it. It is spoiled already people, this is a service)
One of the notable symptoms of split personality disorder, that does not happen in real life but always happens in films, is that another actor plays your personality. Especially if you do not realise that you have said disorder. So we get Edward Norton sprouting the eminently fitter and more charismatic Brad Pitt. Unfortunately for Johnny Depp, it worked the other way round and all he can shoot out is the – let us be charitable – funny looking John Tuturro.
Ooops. Have I spoiled the twist. Trust me, anyone who has seen Fight Club or indeed any film which uses this hokey premise will guess the so called twist after about ten minutes. Which is a pity because the film (Secret Window) is so durned pleased with itself that it keeps letting off more and more hints so that even the dimmest witted of its audience will have got it a good half hour before the reveal. And with the reveal that Tuturro is actually Depp’s alter ego we are left in the tricky situation of having our lead as our villain. The film follows through logically, since the damsel in distress has been seen so little that we really have no investment in her not being killed.
What is most criminal about Secret Window though, and not just the irrelevancy of its title, is that the film tells us that a good story is all about its ending. Well that might be true, but do not stress it when your own ending is so poor. Rather than giving us the Tales Of The Unexpected payoff, we get the incongruous sight of Depp eating corn-on-the-cob with braces on. The payoff? The Corn grows where he buried his victims. Even that was done in The Last Supper to better effect. Score another one up to the Stephen King rubbish adaptation side.