The Woman in the Window
guide by Joe Wright from a screenplay by Tracy Letts , The Woman in the Windowhas been on a farseeing journeying , bring on by 20th Century Studios before being deal to Netflix after its theatrical release was canceled due to the pandemic . The cinema did n’t do so well in early test covering , but make over the film in the aftermath did n’t seem to help much , either . The film want so badly to be a thrilling psychological drama . Based on the novel by A.J. Finn , whose Word of God included a wad more contingent that was strangely left out of this film adaptation , The Woman in the Windowhas a lot of potential that is lost because of a haphazard execution . The output pattern and the plaster cast is stupendous , but the film devolve into a steady mess in its second half and it ’s never able to find from it .
The story follows Dr. Anna Fox ( Amy Adams ) , an agoraphobic tike psychologist who has been bound to her New York City household for ten months . She talks to her estranged married man Ed ( Anthony Mackie ) and daughter Olivia ( Mariah Bozeman ) on the phone daily . Anna sees a therapist , but her Roger Huntington Sessions are becoming less about her getting better and more of a threat . Her interactions with her neighbors and tenant David ( Wyatt Russell ) all come from inside her house — call David from the top of the stairs or watching life sentence go by outside through her windows . However , when her new neighbors move in across the street , Anna run across Jane Russell ( Julianne Moore ) and her son Ethan ( Fred Hechinger ) , forming a attachment with both . When she shockingly sees Jane murdered by her husband Alistair ( Gary Oldman ) , she wills anyone to think that there ’s something strange going on , especially when she abruptly meets Alistair ’s “ real ” wife ( Jennifer Jason Leigh ) . But everyone gaslights Anna at every good turn , including Detective Little ( Brian Tyree Henry ) , not believing her because of her condition .
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The Woman in the Windowis monotonous and obtuse , trying to do too much between trying to be a law-breaking thriller and a psychological drama , twisting itself into knot to make sense of both and failing . The motion picture attempts to be lordly in nature , but lack the finesse to pull any of it off . The film tells the audience that Anna has agoraphobia , but it ’s not apply to the fullest extent , treating her more as an emotional pile of a woman who toast herself to log Z’s every night . On a couple of occasion , Anna ’s agoraphobia is used to heighten the tenseness , but as a woman struggling through her own harm and rassling with the fact that she ’s terrified and panic to be out of doors , The Woman in the Windowlacked the depth to amply search the extent of its impact on Anna in her life outside of the crime she witnesses .
The film also does n’t spend enough time formulate the relationship between Jane and Anna before she presumably dies and Anna is throw off headfirst into a twisted state of affairs . The story itself is imbalanced — it hinges on the fact that Anna is an unreliable narrator , but it stumble at almost every turn , abandoning her humanity for bizarre and nonsensical twists . Whatever momentumThe womanhood in the Windowwas developing at the beginning fizzle out soon enough , with the story becoming a verbose , empty , and anticlimactic mess . Amy Adams , who grant her all in every project , does a fantastic job with the fabric , present Anna with wide - eyed surprise while educe sadness in every movement , haunted by her past in a nonrational direction . Her performance elevate the cloth , but the helter-skelter and fragmented execution of instrument does n’t help .
To be sure , the first fourth of the film has an intense buildup , like the puzzle piece are easy being put out for the audience to solve afterwards on . Was Jane actually murdered or is Anna just seeing things ? The film teases the answers before abruptly tack cogwheel to keep people guessing . But it ’s not precisely the mark of a good psychological thriller if it give up the exploration of the psychology that is meant to ride the narrative to begin with . Anna is a deeply marred woman whose liveliness was interchange completely ten months prior , butThe Woman in the Windowdoes the audience ( and Anna ) a disservice by treating the cause as a twirl rather than something deserving engaging with beyond that .
The Woman in the Windowis disappointing in every means imaginable . Even the terminal reveal is gawky and questionable . It has so much voltage at first , with Anna ’s base — dark , enclosed , and chilling — serving as the center of the film ’s action and drama . But the storey leaves out any character development to make up the psychological wrench that never land . There is so much that could have been done with the movie ’s plot of ground and braid , but it ’s never confident enough in what the story has to offer to lean into any of what might have made it thrilling .
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The Woman in the Windowis currently useable to stream on Netflix . The film is 100 minutes long and is rate roentgen for violence and language .
Amy Adams and Julianne Moore in The Woman in the Window
Amy Adams headliner as child psychologist Anna Fox in The Woman in the Window , a thriller movie based on the novel by A. J. Finn . late separated from her husband , whose girl now survive with him , Anna lives alone and suffers from a condition that keeps her from leave the sign . Now pass her day citizenry - watching , Anna finds herself particularly bewitch with the novel Russell household , who seems to be living an idyllic family liveliness . However , one day she find the family crumble apart , including a roughshod offense that changes her life forever .
Jennifer Jason Leigh, Brian Tyree Henry, Amy Adams, Gary Oldman, and Wyatt Russell in The Woman in the Window
