Abstract
Secret Window tells the story of a writer who succumbs to a psychotic break after discovering his wife’s infidelity. He lapses into a split personality disorder causing him to kill his dog, burn their matrimonial home and finally, to murder his wife and her new lover.
He does not grieve for his losses successfully. His denial of the events makes it impossible for him to recover from the loss of his wife. He behaves fine when he is Rainey, but does grave acts when he is Shooter.
It is only at the end that the audience realizes Rainey and Shooter is the same person.
The 2004 movie, “Secret Window” starring Johnny Depp as Mort Rainey is a horror film depicting the life of Rainey as a writer with a dissociative disorder. The opening scene of the movie shows Rainey driving to a motel where he finds his wife Amy cheating on him with Ted Milner.
It sets the stage for a lengthy divorce that drives Rainey to a psychotic breakdown. Rainey is a writer and is about to release a new book titled, “Secret Window”.
He is struggling to finish the last chapter because he is suffering from writer’s block. As such, he opts to leave their matrimonial home to go and stay in his cabin out of town, somewhere in rural New York.
Before Rainey moves out of town, a man named Shooter visits him and confronts him. Shooter claims that Rainey stole his manuscript. He demands that Rainey comes out clean by admitting to plagiarism. Rainey dismisses him as a sick man.
The next day, Rainey finds his dog stabbed to death using a screwdriver. He calls the police and later hires the services of a private investigator to uncover Shooter’s whereabouts. Shooter pays him a visit one evening and asks Rainey to fix the ending of the book.
Rainey insists the book is his and arranges to show Shooter proof. He refers to an article based on the book published earlier than the date Shooter claims he wrote the story. Soon after, Rainey investigator turns out dead and Shooter tells Rainey that the murder ties back to him.
Therefore, Rainey sinks the car with the investigator’s body in a stone quarry filled with water. In the end, it turns out that Shooter is actually Rainey’s second personality caused by his dissociative disorder.
This becomes clear after Shooter burns Rainey’s matrimonial home, and at the end of the movie, he murders Amy and her new lover Milner outside his cabin, this time as Rainey, but while speaking with Shooter’s accent.
The main crisis in this movie is Rainey’s split personality disorder. It enables him to commit heinous crimes without any remorse. One of the gruesome acts is the killing of his dog. The movie does not show how he kills the dog. It only shows the dead dog with Rainey’s screwdriver stuck on it.
The dog is an innocent party and therefore shows the gravity of Rainey’s problem. On the other hand, the murder of the investigator is also gruesome, using the same screwdriver. These crimes take place under Shooter’s personality.
In the closing moments of the film, Rainey, kills his wife and her lover in cold blood. He uses a shovel to behead her lover and then buries the two.
The final murders take place in the glare of the camera, and this time, Shooter is absent from the scene. Rainey, acting in cold blood, commits the murders with glee.
The kind of crisis Rainey had is hard to treat. Split personality disorders arise because of trauma. It is a kind of coping mechanism caused by lack of alternative means of dealing with an issue.
This crisis came about because of the infidelity of Rainey’s wife. After he found her cheating on him, he broke into tears and never recovered. It was under these circumstances that Shooter surfaced. Shooter represents Rainey’s aggression.
He is the personality he uses to cover up for crimes. The matter of the stolen manuscript is a means of demonstrating the struggle between the two personalities.
Split personality disorders require psychiatric treatment. If Rainey found help early, then he would not have committed the murders that Shooter committed.
Coping with a personality disorder requires coming to terms with aspects of both personalities. They are all a valid part of the same person. Shooter was the depiction of an aggressive Rainey. On the other hand, Rainey was the hurt husband still in love with his wife.
After finding his wife cheating on him, Rainey needed Shooter to take revenge on his behalf. In the same way, Shooter needed Rainey to finish the book. When Rainey realized that he was Shooter, he accepted his personalities.
However, he chose to express his aggression by murdering his wife and her lover. Recovery from split personality disorder requires accepting both sides of one’s personalities and acting in unison.
Awareness of the existence of the problem is the first step towards recovery. It makes it possible for the patient to act as a unified person.
Grieving process
The loss that Rainey needed to grieve was the loss of his wife, first through a divorce and secondly after her murder. It was difficult for Rainey to accept that his wife was unfaithful to him.
He spends most of the time in the movie in denial. After he kills her, he behaves as though there is nothing serious that took place, attempting to live his life normally.
In both cases, he is in denial. His decision to move to the cabin is consistent with seclusion that a grieving person normally seeks.
The second stage of grieving is Anger. In the divorce saga, the anger manifests through his psychotic breakdown. He becomes very irritable whenever he meets Milner. The burning of the house and the killing of his dog both show the extent of anger Rainey felt over his loss.
At the point where he murders both Amy and Milner, his anger is out of control and he seeks to make things right by killing them. After his wife dies, he does not proceed to the next stage of grieving.
The bargaining stage manifests as Rainey tries to win back his wife unsuccessfully. She does not openly reject him but she refuses to accept his overtures.
In fact, Rainey kills her when she tries to bring him the divorce papers in person. Throughout the movie, Rainey is in a state of depression. At some point, he even picks on smoking to drown his sorrows.
Throughout the movie, Rainey does not proceed to the last stage of grieving, which is acceptance. He is in denial throughout the movie.
The pain of losing his wife and the denial thereafter leaves him with a split personality disorder. He does not grieve for his loss effectively.
Reference
Koepp, D. (Director). (2004). Secret Window [Motion Picture].