When The Woman in the Window was first announced three years ago, there was genuine excitement for the project. This adaptation of a buzzy debut novel, an instant New York Times bestseller, written by Dan Mallory (a veteran book executive who wrote it pseudonymously as A.J. Finn), was given the first-class Hollywood treatment a few months after publication. The film’s pedigree remains undeniably impressive.
It’s directed by Joe Wright, who previously helmed beloved adaptations of Pride and Prejudice and Atonement. Mallory’s work was translated for the screen by celebrated playwright Tracy Letts. And Amy Adams leads a sterling cast that includes Julianne Moore, Gary Oldman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Anthony Mackie, Brian Tyree Henry, and Letts (again). Mallory anticipated big Oscar attention, if not an armful of golden statuettes. Things soon went spectacularly awry. The Woman in the Window didn’t stride into theaters as a surefire critical and popular hit, an awards contender, in 2019 as originally imagined. It, instead, hobbled onto Netflix last Friday as a mere afterthought.
This limp and preposterous rehash of better-executed, twisty thrillers will endure as a cautionary tale. You have to approach obvious influences with virtuosity, or at least a little bit of flair. Referencing superior movies and books, over and over again, only invites comparisons, and they can be unflattering at best. Woman arrives as a third-rate retread of David Fincher channeling Alfred Hitchcock via Brian De Palma. A copy of a copy of copy. The result, something just shy of a total disaster, is a grainy Xerox of previous, towering works.
Anna (Amy Adams) is a child psychologist who, at the start of the film, has been completely shut into her laughably palatial Harlem residence for the last 10 months. Due to a yet-undisclosed trauma, she suffers from severe agoraphobia and spends her days washing cocktails of psychiatric medication down with copious amounts of red wine. To pass the boozy, medicated time during this self-imposed imprisonment, she revisits classic films and regularly checks in with her estranged husband Ed (Anthony Mackie), who has custody of their adolescent daughter Olivia (Mariah Bozeman). But Anna’s primary form of entertainment involves the Rear Window-style neighborhood watch referenced in the title.
The Russells, a family of three, move in across the street early into Woman and become Anna’s new project. Their teenage son Ethan (Fred Hechinger, giving us heightened weirdo vibes) visits first, bearing a gift and rumblings of domestic abuse. His mother Jane (Julianne Moore, giving us a questionable accent reminiscent of her 30 Rock stint) and father Alistair (Gary Oldman, giving us a dialed-up, shouty Gary Oldman) arrive individually in quick succession to set up the bloody crime, and central mystery, Anna “observes” through her camera’s telephoto lens.
Be warned: Nothing is as it seems! The tenant (Wyatt Russell) living in Anna’s basement? Kind and helpful, and/or potentially dangerous. The original Jane? She may or may not exist. That angry dad Alistair? He’s probably up to no good, or not. The other Jane (Jennifer Jason Leigh) who shows up to complicate matters and has maybe three lines of dialogue? Definitely not a mere plot complication. By the time a pair of skeptical detectives (Brian Tyree Henry and Jeanine Serralles) waltz into The Woman in the Window, we’re fully into Gone Girl find-and-replace territory. There’s no ingenious mystery here. The big twist is so glaringly obvious, it’s just a matter of confirming prior suspicions. A second, truly bonkers, wrinkle arrives when the film’s cartoonish, Scooby-Doo villain confesses to – and outlines – dastardly deeds plainly. Sure. Fine. OK. Where’s that bottle of red, Anna? We all need some of what you’re drinking.
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