The defence The Arthouse Gremlin
“Its refusal to behave is the point.”
The strange choices create the kind of friction that follows you out of the theatre and into the argument.
Back to trending 
The Scarlet Letter
Thriller · Mystery · Crime · 2004
A cop's desire for love gets in the way of his job and his professional life. Secret love affairs begin to dangerously collide as he gets assigned to a new homicide case.
Movie details
The Scarlet Letter
“Sex. Lies. Murder.”
2004 Thriller · Mystery · Crime 1h 55m
Critical arithmetic
The consensus, allegedly.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
IMDb
6.3 / 10
1.3K votes
TMDB
6.4 / 10
Community rating
External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.
A cop's desire for love gets in the way of his job and his professional life. Secret love affairs begin to dangerously collide as he gets assigned to a new homicide case.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over The Scarlet Letter?
For the defence
The Arthouse Gremlin
“The stranger, the better.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Popcorn Loyalist
“Big screen, big feelings, no apologies.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
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When Michael and Karen Carr’s home is robbed, the couple strike up a friendship with duty officer Pete Davis. But the disturbed cop develops an intense fixation on Karen, and his idea of friendship soon turns into a dangerous obsession, making him the Carrs’ worst nightmare.
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Secret Window
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Where it lives
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Byun Hyuk
Written by
Kang Hyun-joo · Byun Hyuk
Han Suk-kyu
Lee Ki-hoon
Lee Eun-ju
Choi Ga-hee
Sung Hyun-ah
Ji Kyung-hee
Uhm Ji-won
Han Su-hyun
Kim Jin-geun
Jung Myung-sik
Choi Gyu-hwan
Detective Choi
Do Yong-gu
President Han
Court is in session
Put The Scarlet Letter on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist
“Oddness is not depth.”
A film can break every rule and still leave nothing behind but the memory of how hard it tried to be singular.