The Woman in the Window – Review: A Flat Homage to Hitchcock

As a huge fan of Amy Adams, I had been waiting for this film for a while now. After being filmed all the way back in 2018, a year that who could’ve thought would be so different than 2021 with the life-changing pandemic, the film The Woman in the Window finally released just yesterday on Netflix. A film about a woman who hadn’t gotten out of her home in 10 months (something that we can all somehow relate to now, right? damn COVID…).

Anyway, after a long week of work, the first thing I did after finishing up Friday’s tasks, was turning on the TV and put this film, and finally see Amy Adams shine on my screen. Before getting into the review, let’s do a brief summary:

The Woman in the Window is a film by Joe Wright (Darkest Hour, Pride & Prejudice, Atonement) that’s based on the 2018 book of the same name by A. J. Finn. The story centers around Anna, an agoraphobic psychologist that has suffered a traumatic experience that has her being afraid of leaving her home. She can’t manage to go outside, and even the thought of it detonates severe panic attacks.

One of her hobbies is watching her neighbors through her windows, hence The Woman in the Window. When the Russells, a family of 3, moves in front of her house, Anna starts developing an obsession surrounding her house. To ease her troubles, she goes to the psychiatrist who strongly medicates her, which together with her alcohol problems & her newfound obsession with her neighbors, has everything mixed up in a way that reality & fiction start to merge with one another.

The last Netlflix thriller/drama we reviewed was Things Heard & Seen, starring Amanda Seyfried. You can read it here.

A Flat Homage to Hitchcock & the 50s

All of these setups create a very interesting premise, that fuels the mystery behind this psychological thriller. Wright is a great director, and in this film, he manages to create an environment that allows the viewer to immerse deep into Anna’s obsession. It does so by merging the cinematic elements he has at his disposal and enhance the character’s journey.

A feeling of constant unease is created with Danny Elfman’s score & Bruno Delbonnel’s cinematography, which are absolutely fantastic. They can be beautiful & esthetic when the film needs them to be, and tense & claustrophobic when Anne is anxious.

All of these cinematic elements create a tone & style that is very reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock. In a way, this story is heavily inspired in Rear Window, Hitchock’s film of 1954 about a photographer trapped in his own house after a leg injury, that starts discovering revelating things after he spied on his neighbors. Without spoiling The Woman in the Window, the film turns itself from a suspenseful thriller, into a 50s horror flick with how it used the effects, the acting, and the camera movements to evoke the feeling of watching an old horror flick.

On paper, it sounded great, but the fact was, that this turn of genres & its slow script made the film fall flat on its third act. It wanted to become a grandeur homage to Hitchcock, but it ultimately failed to do so. The Woman in the Window was building a fair share amount of suspense & mystery surrounding Anna & her story, but this last bit felt weird to watch. I don’t know if it was because it tried an older filming style while being a colored, 4k film in a modern setting, or because it felt weird watching Amy Adams being part of this genre, but the thing is, that made the film became of lesser viewing quality.

Other than that, it featured a stellar cast with Gary Oldman, Julianne Moore, Anthony Mackie, and of course Amy Adams, the last of which carried the weight of the film on her shoulders with her impressive talent and quality acting. It’s a shame that this great performance came again, as with Hillbilly Elegy, on an average film. That, and the fact that it transformed into a horror flick by the end, will most likely tarnish any hopes for a nomination for her job. Sadly, her Oscar will still have to wait a little more to arrive in her hands.

Still, Adams’s performance wasn’t enough to save this film from having a tasteless ending that left the film feeling flat and forgettable. I’d still recommend it to some friends, especially if you are a fan of Amy or Wright (although, this is a totally different style from what he has accustomed us to).

Score 6.5/10