The Woman In The Window

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Radio South West Victoria and Ballarat on May 28, 2021.

(MA15+) ★★

Director: Joe Wright.

Cast: Amy Adams, Gary Oldman, Julianne Moore, Tracy Letts, Fred Hechinger, Wyatt Russell, Anthony Mackie, Brian Tyree Henry, Jennifer Jason Leigh.

The birdwatching took a dark turn when she realised they were all tiny robots.

Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, itself based on a 1942 short story, has been remade, reinvented and ripped off a couple of times over the years. There's the Christopher Reeve telemovie, the excellent Shia LaBeouf-starring Disturbia, and spoofs in everything from The Simpsons and Family Guy, to Get Smart and The Flinstones.

Now there's this wrong-footed thriller, which is supposedly based on the A. J. Finn novel The Woman In The Window, and not the Hitch classic. Whatever its source, it's based on a similar premise, and doesn't do it justice. While its ideas are okay and its cast excellent, this twisty psychological drama survives on contrivances and convenience, and fails to land a killer blow in its big reveal, instead drifting into unsatisfying horror-movie territory.

Adams plays Dr Anna Fox, a child psychologist suffering from agoraphobia following an unknown incident. Unable to leave her house, she watches her neighbours, including the newly moved-in Russell family. But very quickly she realises something's not quite right with her new neighbours. Or is she just going crazy?

Beware: the trailer has some spoilers, but none of the really big ones.

There are twists and turns aplenty here - some satisfy, many don't - but as they pile up, the film gets less and less convincing. The story and mood goes out the window and Fonzies over a shark eventually, but even before that it's barely keeping its feet on the ground. 

The suspense relies on too many contrivances - a character withholding vital information, the police not doing their job properly, the convenient forgetting of important things - to maintain its level of suspense.  The efforts to keep the audience in the dark eventually give way to frustration, and when the pay-offs don't marry up, the end result is disappointing.

It's a shame because there are good elements, particularly the cast. Adams is amazing, holding the film together with a great performance from the "are they actually crazy?" category. She's mesmerising, and stops the film from being far worse than it would otherwise be. Everyone else is great too, in fleeting turns. Oldman has a few minutes to be angry in, Moore is bewitching in a very small role, and Henry adds some pathos, particular at the film's end.

The script is clunky in places, but there are some good moments. "Let's try this - people who attempt suicide lose the right to joke about it" is a pretty neat line, and is actually delivered by the script's author Tracy Letts, who does a nice job as Anna's therapist. But a stilted conversation between two women trying to keep their secrets over a couple of glasses of red is awkwardly written, and not in a good way. Overall, the whole thing has the feel of a script trying to include bits from another source that people liked, but can't make them fit together in the right way.

Much of the blame falls to Wright. The director (who's given us such great films as Atonement and Darkest Hour, and such utter shite as Pan) makes things look pretty, giving Anna's house a gothic tinge, but he does nothing to elevate proceedings. The big reveal regarding Anna's agoraphobia looks pretty but ends up feeling hokey. Wright can't make the pieces fit with an overarching tone, or fix the contrivances and story holes in the editing suite.

So much talent goes to waste here, particularly Adams' highwire performance. Whether its a clandestine remake of Rear Window or not is almost a moot point. No matter which way this thriller swings its knife, it doesn't cut it.