The Woman In The Window - Movie Review

Critics Score - 5 of 10

General Audience Score - 6 of 10

Is The Woman In The Window really the worst movie of the year as many people are claiming and deserving of the terrible scores and ratings that critics are flogging it with? Maybe . . . but perhaps not. There's good and bad in just about every film, and this latest offering from Netflix has a decent amount of both.

PROS & CONS - In this day and age, so many people are dealing with myriads of mental and emotional problems, from traumas and depression to anxiety and high levels of stress to name a few. And with the complications of Covid-19 keeping many people indoors, many of these problems as a society have just become exacerbated. The Woman In The Window plays with many of the fears, sadnesses and paranoia that people have been experiencing over the course of the pandemic. The film doesn’t do this in a way that’s very successful but it does enough with the premise that it isn’t a failure. The emotional weight of the film is fairly shallow despite it being a psychological thriller and drama. But there’s just something intriguing about that lady behind the glass.

As The Woman In The Window begins, we’re introduced to an agoraphobic psychologist who’s way too interested in what her neighbors are up to. Dr. Anna Fox (Amy Adams) really does some of the heavy lifting for the film, she fears going outside and lives in general paranoia, taking medications galore. Soon some new neighbors move in across the street, the Russells, the father Alistair (Gary Oldman), the wife Jane (Julianna Moore & Jennifer Jason Leigh) and son Ethan (Fred Hechinger) who all pull their weight in their respective roles. Anna strikes up a friendship with Jane (Moore) only to witness soon thereafter, what she believes is the murder of her newfound friend. Alistair seems to be the angry abusive husband and father with Ethan seeming to be another one of his victims. But when Anna calls the police about her suspicions of Alistair, she discovers he's a detective for the local precinct when he comes to her house to investigate her claim. As she fights to prove her suspicions against Alistair are correct, the state of her mental health deteriorates to the point of madness and delusions.

By the time Anna is done fighting these battles, we've twisted and turned our way through a maze of confusing melodrama. With the movie being just over one hour and forty minutes, it's able to keep up a nice pace and has a decent amount of reveals and surprises. But despite the very good performance Adams turns in, the story is horribly convoluted and never really makes us care about anyone or anything going on. The sound was ok for parts but other times just wasn't adding much and some of the visuals were well done and had some nice cinematic flair to them. It's easy to be fairly entertained by The Woman In The Window while it's onscreen but you'll forget all about her once you stand up from your couch.

SUMMARY - This movie did enough things fair to well that I couldn't find it in myself to utterly destroy it. While it certainly wasn't a great movie or maybe even a good one, it was not bad. I've watched some bad movies before, this wasn't one of them. So check it out if you're all caught up on everything else you've been meaning to watch, because this Woman In The Window just isn't that bad.