SECRET WINDOW

US, 2004, 105 minutes, Colour.
Johnny Depp, John Turturro, Maria Bello, Timothy Hutton, Charles S. Dutton, Len Cariou.
Directed by David Koepp.

Top ingredients: a Stephen King novella, Johnny Depp, an intriguing title. It's not bad but it is not the outstanding thriller that one might have expected. Adapted for the screen by director, David Koepp (Stir of Echoes, which was a fascinating story of hauntings and madness), it takes on favourite themes for King, including an author with writer's block, mad fans, violence and madness.

Johnny Depp yet gives another different performance as Mort Rainey, a popular novelist living alone near a lake in upstate New York, looking and sounding dishevelled, with writer's block and prone to napping all the time. He is confronted by a stranger, with an old-fashioned black hat and a thick southern accent who claims that Rainey has stolen one of his stories. His name is Shooter and he continues to stalk, haunt and do violence to Mort. Houses are burnt, friends are killed...

If you feel you are familiar with this kind of story and with Stephen King's predilections, you may well work out what is going on - and then the suspense becomes waiting to find out if you were right.

Maria Bello is his wife, Timothy Hutton the man she is with and Charles S. Dutton is an exclusive security guard. John Turturro does a wonderfully sinister turn as Shooter. But it is Johnny Depp's film. He is in almost every sequence and he creates a character you can believe in rather than believe.

1. A Stephen King story? King's issues of authors, nightmares, violence, madness?

2. The New England setting, the house and the interiors, the range of rooms, the bedroom, the downstairs, the bathroom? Seeing and knowing these rooms in detail? In order, destroyed? The lake? The country roads? The town, the post office, the shop, the motel? The contrast with New York, Amy's house, the offices? The real world? The contrast with the fantasy world - the visualising of Mort's story, the flashbacks, the imagining of the house after it was burnt, his visit and his watching the burnt house? The Philip Glass moody score?

3. The prologue, Mort outside the motel, talking to himself, backing the car, getting the key, finding Amy and Ted in the room, their betrayal? Six months later, his writer's block, the paragraph in the typewriter, the story of betrayal?

4. Mort and his dishevelled look, raggy clothing, his hat, sleeping all the time, writer's block, the companionship of his dog? The housekeeper and her tidying up and his making faces behind her back? The arrival of Shooter, pounding on the door, the confrontation, Mort saying he didn't know him, the issue of the manuscript, Shooter leaving it, his throwing it in the garbage, the housekeeper taking it out, his beginning to read it, the manuscript being word-for-word for his story? Shooter writing it in 1997, his publishing his story two years before? Checking with Amy by phone? The dilemma in trying to prove that it was his story and not Shooter's?

5. Mort and his handling the situation, his fears? Talking to himself, forever taking naps, the continued phone calls? Shooter and his ominous presence? The mystery man, the car from Mississippi, the strange hat, the accent, the claims? His ringing his security guard, interviewing him, the timing and the expense of his work? His finding him asleep outside the house, the fright? The search of the house, his fears, Shooter reappearing, Mort's reaction and shooting the mirror and the shower glass? Finding his dog dead - and burying him? His going to New York, stalking Amy outside the house? Amy and Ted? The house burning down?

6. The house, his visiting the burnt house, Amy's phone call? Seeing Amy and Ted, his clashing with Ted? The insurance office, his insulting Ted, getting rid of him, talking to Amy, going down the street and talking to Ted, discovering the name of Ted's home in Tennessee, Shooter's Bay? Blaming him for everything that was happening? Confronting him and challenging him?

7. The return to the lake, his phoning his security guard, making the appointment with the old man who had waved to them and could witness to Shooter's presence (and the later flashback and his waving only to Mort)? His waking late, his going to the appointment, discovering the bodies, fainting, his pushing the car over the cliff into the water? Shooter's arrival, challenging him, giving him the time limit? His hurrying to the post office to get the magazine, finding it had been torn open, the pages cut out? His being unwilling to talk to the sheriff?

8. Amy and Ted, the phone calls, their love for each other, the broken marriage, Amy and her explanations, Mort's drinking? The love and betrayal, the blame? Ted coming to visit, Mort finding him at the service station, the clash, Ted punching his hand on the car? His wanting Mort to sign the divorce documents? Amy, the phone call, her deciding to visit with the papers, Ted deciding to follow her?

9. The sheriff, his age, doing needlepoint for his arthritis, listening to Mort - and not listening? His wanting to talk to Mort, Mort hurrying away? His return at the end, his knowing the truth, threatening Mort?

10. The people in the town, the growing suspicions, at the shop, the girl from the post office, his flirting and her moving away?

11. Mort continuing to talk to himself, the two selves appearing, his having created Shooter as an alter-ego, a shadow figure? Their clash? The visualising of the story, the garden, Amy's garden? The showing of the two Morts, the showing of Mort alone but talking to his alter-ego? Amy's arrival, being disturbed, the destruction in the house, her finding Mort behind the door, his persecution of her, the physical violence, her death? Her trying to warn Ted, his death?

12. The end, the writer's block gone, Mort writing his story - and looking through the secret window to the garden, the corn crop and the complete disappearance of Amy as in the story? The irony of his eating the corn, the visit of the sheriff, the cooking of the corn?

13. Stephen King themes, psychological thriller, psychological case-study, madness?