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The Woman in the Window Review.

Netflix released the film on Friday May 14th, 2021.

By Reel VibesPublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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Netflix has been releasing movie after movie it seems without slowing down. It's been a lot of content while things are difficult. The latest film to hit Netflix was the thriller The Woman in the Window.

It begins with some insight to Anna Fox, child psychologist who lives alone and suffers from Agoraphobia. It's mentioned that this is due to past trauma in her life and it's been a while since she stepped outside. She carries through the motions of her life, sleeping, eating, drinking (heavily warned against) and conversing with her new neighbours. One night she sees the woman across the street stabbed but not all is what seems when the new neighbours come by claiming nothing has happened.

Anna is painted as an unreliable narrator due to the alcohol and medication use. Amy Adams plays the role with a delicate balance of wanting to believe in Anna and thinking this all could be a hallucination. She's believable in her displays of grief, frustration and regret as we learn later in the film what transpired in her past. Without this performance from Adams being as great as it was the film would have zero to stand on. It offers Anna, a flawed narrator whose mental illness is the catalyst for the entire plot.

Everything else is basically a throwaway. Oldman is given the most to work with but it's made quite clear that there is something bigger going on. His character was never written with a morality that added to the delusion that Anna may be in fact hallucinating the entire thing. As the film plays out you do realize there is some truth to his words of anger but even that twist comes right out of left field. Not so much the twist of why the identity crisis arises in the first place but one final twist that neither added any elements to the film or subtracted any. The final twist is pure shock value and it doesn't really work because we already had the notion as audiences something sinister was at play.

The scene surrounding the big reveal and the subsequent slasher scenes that follow were very lacklustre. There is nothing left after the big reveal other than it plays out with Anna being forgiven for truly having spoken the truth the whole time. It's rather lazy. It could have said and done something different. I hate that a film centered around such an anchor of a performance from Adams became just another typical psychological thriller without a grandiose twist that actually said something new. This type of movie has the potential to say a lot. Especially with Mental Illness being one of the main themes. It just gives Anna more trauma for the sake of it and the resolution never feels earned. The forgiveness for the things they put her through felt deadpan and like it was the only ending they could think of.

Apart from the reveal of Anna's past trauma and the core performance from Amy Adams this film just breezes by. It skips out on doing something new with the subject matter. Which is by no means Amy Adams fault. She gave this film any fighting chance and I stand behind that. Her talent is undeniable in this and many other projects. It's merely wasted potential and it's a shame to keep seeing that occur and be pumped out at us like they can't create an original ending for these types of films. There are so many better branches of this story that come to mind but alas this was the story they chose. The safe ending. The safe twist. The safe outcome. Stories need to take these concepts and expand upon them. Not try and perfect something that's already been perfected. It's serviceable and it could have and should have been more than that.

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About the Creator

Reel Vibes

All things pop culture. Movies, TV, Music,Comics as well as some dabbling into the Sports world. If you can record it, watch it and play it back. I have an opinion.

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