Continuity mistake: In the opening scene, Mort closes the door of his jeep before he goes into the hotel room. You can hear the sound of the door closing and it's visible in the rearview-mirror. As the camera moves out of the room, the jeep door is completely open. (00:02:05)
Secret Window (2004)
Ending / spoiler
Directed by: David Koepp
Starring: Johnny Depp, John Turturro, Maria Bello, Timothy Hutton
In the end it is revealed that John Shooter (Turturro) is actually a personality of Mort Rainey (Depp) who has dissociative identity disorder. In the end, Shooter overwhelmed him, becoming the dominant personality, essentially destroying Mort. It is clear that Shooter pushed Rainey to correct his life, not the story, to take his revenge and kill his wife, Amy (Bello), whom he was currently going through a divorce with. After being confronted, Shooter took control of Rainey's body as Mort Rainey was unable to live with what Shooter had done on his behalf and performed a sort of 'mental suicide', as was hinted to by Shooter (now played by Depp) with the comment of "Now I never put a hand on him, Misses, I swear, he took the coward's way out." A fight ensued between the two, ending with Amy laying behind the house in the garden, wounded, unable to flee. Ted (Hutton) arrives, lured behind the house by Amy's screams. Shooter (Depp) kills both Amy and Ted with a shovel. Before he kills Amy, as he advances upon her, he recites the true ending of "Secret Window", the one he wanted Mort Rainey to replace with the 'ruined ending' Mort wrote. "'I know I can do it,' Todd Downey said, helping himself to another ear of corn from the steaming bowl. 'I'm sure that in time, every bit of her will be gone, and her death will be a mystery, even to me.'" He goes into town to shop, where the locals become unnerved by his presence, either tensing up or fleeing from the store. Later the Sheriff arrives at "Rainey's" cabin, discovering masses of corn in the kitchen. Rainey/Shooter is upstairs at the desk, now speaking in a confident manner, void of his Mississippi accent. The Sheriff tells 'Rainey' to stay out of town, they know what he did and that as soon as they found the bodies they could tie it to him. Rainey/Shooter agrees to shop out of town, grinning at the Sheriff as he states that the ending is the only thing that matters "This one's very good, this one's perfect." The last scenes are a tightly packed row of corns, growing in Amy's garden, now Amy and Ted's grave site, and Shooter/Rainey biting into an ear of corn.
Julian
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Suggested correction: The door just didn't actually catch. I've had cars like that, especially during the winter.
Given that we see it stay closed for almost 4 seconds and hear it catch, it's a valid mistake.
If you've ever lived where it snows a lot, you'd know that door catches accumulate moisture (ice) and can open slowly, as it did in this case.
John Shooter: You strike me as the kind of guy who's on the lookout for a head he can knock off with a shovel.
Trivia: Chicko, the dog, was 11 years old and blind. The dog was constantly bumping into furniture so it was very hard for the film crew. They only got one take of Chicko walking through the doggie door with out bumping into the wall or a piece of furniture and that is the take that was in the movie.
Question: What is the meaning behind the Morton salt and other groceries that Mort buys at the end of the movie?
Answer: Mort Rainey buys the salt, butter, and napkins for eating the corn he grew in the garden above Ted and Amy's graves. The "Morton" brand of salt uses the advertising slogan, "when it rains, it pours." Mort Rainey's name can be translated to "raining death." The "Vanity Fair" napkins could be a refernce to Mort's personality.
The term Vanity Fair was coined (I believe first) by John Bunyan in 1678, as a place in a story called ‘The Pilgrim's Progress'. Mort is referred to as ‘Pilgrim' by a few different characters in the film, including himself, without much explanation until the serviettes. Brilliant. Vanity Fair in John Bunyan's story is a never-ending fair of frivolity, which is similar to Mort's charade of denial. Found this info when I searched the meaning of Vanity Fair on vocabulary.com.
Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress was also the inspiration for William Thackeray's 1847 novel, "Vanity Fair."
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