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Passes the Bechdel test

Secret Window

2004. Directed by David Koepp, written by Stephen King and David Koepp.

The Bechdel test

Bechdel score

3 / 3

Passes

  1. Yes 1. At least two women
    6 women characters. 3 of them speak.
  2. Yes 2. Who talk to each other
    In 3 scenes out of 36.
  3. Yes 3. About something besides a man
    In those scenes, our script parser found no man named. See the scene.

Second opinion

Disagree bechdeltest.com readers give it 1 out of 3.

Poster for Secret Window

The film

Mort Rainey is a successful writer going through a rather unfriendly divorce from his wife of ten years, Amy. Alone and bitter in his cabin, he continues to work on his writing when a stranger named John Shooter shows up on his doorstep, claiming Rainey stole his story. Mort says he can prove the story belongs to him and not Shooter, but while Mort digs around for the magazine which published the story in question years ago, things begin to happen around Shooter. Mort's dog dies, people begin to die, and his divorce proceedings with Amy continue to get uglier. It seems that Shooter has Mort over a barrel, but perhaps Mort has his own ideas on how to resolve all the problems that plague him lately.

Released
12 Mar 2004
Genres
Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Rated
PG-13
IMDb
6.5 / 10
Metascore
46 / 100
Awards
3 nominations total
Elsewhere
View on IMDb

Starring, by lines spoken

  • Women
  • Men
  • Not in the cast list
  • Bigger name, more lines
  1. Mort 157 lines, man
  2. Hort 64 lines, man
  3. Shooter 60 lines, man
  4. Amy 39 lines, woman
  5. Kelsch 19 lines, man
  6. Any 16 lines, woman
  7. Ted 16 lines, man
  8. Nort 13 lines, man
  9. Gerda 11 lines
  10. Kort 11 lines
Full cast, 16 people
  • Johnny Depp as Mort Rainey
  • John Turturro as John Shooter
  • Maria Bello as Amy Rainey
  • Timothy Hutton as Ted Milner
  • Charles S. Dutton as Ken Karsch
  • Len Cariou as Sheriff Dave Newsome
  • Joan Heney as Mrs. Garvey
  • John Dunn-Hill as Tom Greenleaf
  • Vlasta Vrana as Fire Chief Wickersham
  • Matt Holland as Detective Bradley
  • Gillian Ferrabee as Fran Evans
  • Bronwen Mantel as Greta Bowie
  • Elizabeth Marleau as Juliet Stoker
  • Kyle Allatt as Busboy
  • Richard Jutras as Motel Manager
  • Sarah Allen as Sheriff's Niece

Who talks, scene by scene

Lines of dialogue in every 1 scene, start to finish. Women above the line, men below. 21% of lines come from characters we couldn't match to the cast list and aren't shown.

Women

Men

Scene 1 Scene 36

Hover, tap or tab to a bar to see those scenes: where they happen and who's talking.

Show the numbers
ScenesWomen's linesMen's lines
1 to 100
2 to 2013
3 to 300
4 to 402
5 to 51417
6 to 602
7 to 716
8 to 838
9 to 910
10 to 1011
11 to 1101
12 to 1211
13 to 13041
14 to 1401
15 to 1505
16 to 1600
17 to 17033
18 to 1804
19 to 1907
20 to 2000
21 to 2100
22 to 22025
23 to 2334
24 to 241724
25 to 25013
26 to 26012
27 to 2700
28 to 28050
29 to 29129
30 to 3096
31 to 3102
32 to 3200
33 to 33029
34 to 3403
35 to 3559
36 to 361026

The evidence

  • Straight from the script
  • Counted from the script and the credits

Tap an exhibit to open it.

Exhibit A: the passing scenes

The scene our parser counted as passing, word for word.
AMY: ZT don't know, I -= it‘s jnst, you're alone up thers, anything could happen and nobody would knew. MOR? } I'd know. ANY: Right.
ANY: Are you sure? When I saw you yesterday, I thought you locked... strained. I mean, I knew you are AMY: Do you think things would have bean different if we'd had children?
AMY: {a whisper) Kort? ANY: (a mutter} Joha shooter... % AMY: BL, AMY: Where'd you find that old thing? The attic?

Exhibit B: every 100 lines

Out of every 100 lines with a known speaker, 18 are women's.

77 lines from women, 354 from men.

  • Women
  • Men

Exhibit C: who's in it

6 women and 10 men in the cast. 3 women and 15 men from it get lines.

Characters

With lines

  • Women
  • Men

Exhibit D: who gets heard

The first woman speaks at line 22 of 544. The longest stretch with no woman speaking runs 143 lines.

Every line of dialogue, first to last

  • First line by a woman
  • Longest stretch with no woman speaking

Words spoken

Women speak 18% of the words (1,233), men 82% (5,807).

Exhibit E: the test the other way

Two named men talk to each other about something besides a woman. It passes the reverse test.

Conversations between two named characters

Exhibit F: behind the camera

2 of the 11 people in these jobs are women. Across the whole crew, 25% of the people whose gender is listed are women.

Directed by
David Koepp (man)
Written by
David Koepp (man)
From the novel by
Stephen King (man)
Produced by
Gavin Polone (man)
Shot by
Fred Murphy (man)
Edited by
Jill Savitt (woman)
Music by
Philip Glass (man)
Production design by
Howard Cummings (man)
Costumes by
Odette Gadoury (gender not listed)
Cast by
John Papsidera (man), Patricia McCorkle (woman)

The crew, department by department

  • Other crew

    3 women, 6 men, 14 not listed

  • Sound

    4 women, 9 men, 7 not listed

  • Production

    1 women, 3 men, 15 not listed

  • Costume & Make-Up

    2 women, 1 men, 9 not listed

  • Camera

    0 women, 3 men, 8 not listed

  • Art

    0 women, 4 men, 5 not listed

  • Editing

    2 women, 4 men, 1 not listed

  • Visual Effects

    0 women, 2 men, 3 not listed

  • Women
  • Men
  • Gender not listed on TMDB

Exhibit G: how old the stars were

Women: 36 on average. Men: 53 on average. The top-billed cast, at the film's release.

Women

Maria Bello 36

Men

Johnny Depp 40, Timothy Hutton 43, John Turturro 47, Charles S. Dutton 53, Vlasta Vrana 54, Len Cariou 64, John Dunn-Hill 68

Exhibit H: the money

It made 2.3 times what it cost.

Budget
$40 million
Box office
$92.9 million

From TMDB, not adjusted for inflation.

About this analysis

Our parser read the script: 36 scenes and 544 lines of dialogue. The bechdeltest.com rating comes from that site’s readers. How the test works

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