‘The Woman in the Window’ Review

I remember seeing the trailer for The Woman in the Window what seems like ages ago and almost completely forgot about it. When the trailer resurfaced and it said it was coming to Netflix, I figured something went wrong. However, due to COVID-19, it’s hard to know whether that’s due to delays or due to re-shoots & rewrites. It turns out it’s due to both and it comes across in how sloppy the final product is. 

Premise

Amy Adams is an agoraphobe who spends her days living at home and observing her neighbors from her window. She becomes intrigued by a family who moved in across the street from her. After she witnesses a murder, she finds herself entrenched in a mystery that will have her questioning her own sanity. 

Review

The Woman in the Window is trying so hard to be more than it actually is. It wants to be a great, psychological thriller akin to something by Hitchcock. The film even references Rear Window at the beginning of the film and is drenched with shots reminiscent of that film. However, it struggles in many areas from its plot, its direction, and even some of its performances.

First, a film like this relies mostly on having an interesting mystery. Unfortunately, the mystery is not exactly intriguing and the twist at the end fails to pay off. In fact, I called who the killer was very early on in the film. The Woman in the Window utilizes the tactic of not showing who exactly the killer was during the murder scene. It provides a red herring, but not a very convincing one. 

The direction from Joe Wright, who has plenty of directing talent, makes plenty of strange choices here. There’s a lot of zoom-in shots and weird effects that are thrown in at times. It makes a simple activity like walking seem more complicated than it actually is. The tension in the film isn’t executed well either with some jump scares that aren’t built up enough.

The cinematography is impressive with some creative shots of Adams in her apartment or her viewing the street. Like I said earlier, the filmmakers are trying hard to recreate a Hitchcock environment. The editing made some scenes unwatchable with lots of frantic cuts making it difficult to retain what just happened. 

It’s too bad this film didn’t work as well as it should’ve as the film has a star-studded cast. Unfortunately, many of the cast do not have much to work with and are often overacting at times. Adams does a great job at creating a character whose mental state isn’t clear. There are other times where Adams’ line delivery comes out rather flat, but that may be due to the script. 

Other cast members include Gary Oldman, Wyatt Russell, Brian Tyree Henry, Anthony Mackie, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Julianne Moore. Many of these actors only pop in for a scene or two. Moore has one very odd scene and Mackie is typically only used as voiceover, conversing in phone calls with Adams. Russell has the second most screen time to Adams and, for the most part, he’s pretty good. 

The film isn’t paced poorly. I can’t say I was ever bored. It’s only 1 hour and 40 minutes, so it gets to the point pretty quickly. It’s just a movie that you’re immediately going to forget after you watch it. 

Final verdict

The Woman in the Window has a good movie somewhere in there, but it gets lost in a messy film with plenty of odd choices. The plot can be intriguing at points, but it’s predictable which makes the impactful moments meaningless. It’s also upsetting to see a tremendous cast wasted with a bland script. There are plenty of other better thrillers out there, so I would recommend checking out those instead.

Final score: 2/5