Tracey’s was a recent chick flick which, as I understand it, unabashedly plopped a romance into the middle of two failed marriages. Given the frequency with which folk glide in and out of nuptials in the 21st century, I shouldn’t be surprised, I suppose; if a funeral can provide the logical starting point for a successful romantic comedy, why not a divorce? (I don’t think I need to name names . . .)

It’s a tragedy, really, that what was intended to be a wonderful, holy union of best friends committed till death has deteriorated into something that often resembles an elongated hookup. The idea that marriage is for life appears to be rapidly approaching the status of archaic myth. Divorce these days seems less a rending of flesh than a tearing of paper along a perforated line, a separation into two neat halves of what was only tentatively one to begin with. I don’t mean, of course, that divorce no longer hurts the parties involved, only that it somehow appears less destructive than it once did, perhaps because more common, more expected, and more rarely bemoaned in the media (think Lance Armstrong).

So it’s refreshing in a weird kinda of way to see in David Koepp’s Secret Window (2004) a story which takes seriously the spiritual and psychological damage incurred by marital failure. The film, based on a story by Stephen King, suggests that divorce can do serious—even irreparable—damage to the psyche of one who otherwise has it together. I won’t spoil the plot by telling you exactly how this movie slowly transforms from one genre into another, but suffice it to say that the Johnny Depp starrer leaves no doubts as to how deeply its hero is scarred by his wife’s adultery and subsequent liaison. A fantastic, exaggerated plot, perhaps, but with an important kernel of truth.