“The Woman in the Window”: NPR

The woman at the window It was a little … Vipers, let’s just get that out of the way first. Filmed in 2018 (!), And was scheduled to be shown in 2019 (!!), but postponed to 2020 for re-filming (!!!) and then to 2021 due to the pandemic (!!!!). This is a long way. Meanwhile, the writer of the novel on which the film is based is the subject An explosive substance in The New Yorker He accused him of a variety of deception, and confronted producer Scott Rodin With allegations too, especially about his treatment of his aides.

The strange thing is that in many ways, the movie, which is coming to Netflix on May 14th, has a solid lineage. Directed by Joe Wright (expiationAnd the HannaAnd the The worst case) And starring Amy Adams, working from screenplay by playwright Tracy Letts. The cast includes Gary Oldman, Brian Terry Henry, Julianne Moore, and Anthony Mackie. On top of that, something seems to be ripe in a movie about agoraphobia that comes out at the end of a period of extreme isolation for many people.

Adams plays a child psychiatrist named Anna Fox. She lives alone, but has phone conversations with her (ex?) Husband (Maki) about his and their daughter’s conditions. She does not go out. Absolutely. She explains that she suffers from agoraphobia, although it’s unclear at first how long this has been the case. She turned it all over, and has help from a scruffy tenant downstairs (Wyatt Russell is charming but enigmatic, from Lodge 49 And recently Falcon and Winter Soldier), Who is doing his best to conquer her fears.

Anna becomes interested in the new neighbors across the street, and when she meets teenage son (Fred Hechinger) and mother (Moore), she begins to feel connected. But then she witnesses something out of her window – she is, after all, the woman in … well, you know – and becomes anxious. In the end, I also met the family patriarch (Oldman). Before long, she was in contact with a cop (Henry) who wasn’t sure what to do about her concerns.

The woman at the window It belonged to a category of domestic thriller films that blossomed with a new energy after that The girl is gone It was published in 2012. It appears to connect again in particular The girl is on the train It was published in 2015 and was adapted into a movie starring Emily Blunt the following year. They look alike each other not only because of their similar surnames, but because they are all about women who think they’ve seen something and have to think if they haven’t actually seen it. Both are about a woman whose deeply troubled life questions almost everything she has to say. Narrators are not only unreliable to the reader (or observer), but they are not dependent on themselves.

One of the challenges with this type of story is that it has a limited number of places to go. Either Anna saw what she thought she did, or she didn’t. Either she is acquitted or she is not. We’ve seen both ends before when it comes to the unreliable narrator: We’ve seen what they look like when everyone says, “I’m so sorry I doubted you,” and we’ve seen what they look like when reality approaches and the narrator’s unreliability turns out to be an outright wrong directive.

Thus, as with many pieces of art, it is all about how to go from point A to point B. Nobody stays with a movie just because Jack-in-the-box either comes out or not. There are some powerful moments – and there is some visual creativity – as Anna tries to reconcile her present with her past. But without spoiling anything, I’ll say the conclusion to this story isn’t that innovative. It’s complicated – confusion is said to be part of the reason re-shootings happen. This is so common in stories trying to get somewhere where they tied enough knots in a thread that it is almost impossible for anyone to say that they really anticipate where the story is going. But the complex only requires dumping a lot of conspiracy leftovers to hide the truth. Innovative means using the formula to do something new and meaningful, and that’s where this movie falls short.

They might slip away from the familiar plot if there was a little more dimension to these characters. This is especially true of Anna herself, whose fear and paranoia seem … well, like the zone of fear and cinematic paranoia. The most intriguing character is Julianne Moore, whose laughter is unsettling and his kindness is ominous, but whose appearance is unfortunately short. Oldman plays a pretty cool role, as Hechinger. There’s a good late-movie scene between Adams and wild charismatic Brian Terry Henry, and if there was a way to make the movie more than two while trying to convince him to believe it, it might as well feel like a stronger story.

As it stands, you get a good cast who works with a good director and screenwriter on a story that just doesn’t have enough to offer.