"The Woman in the Window"... All Police Cinema in One Film!
The Woman in the Window had all the ingredients for success: a best-selling novel since its 2017 publication, written by A.J. Finn, the popular detective writer.
A great and capable director is Joe Wright, the owner of big films such as "Atonement" and "The Darkest Hour", who presents here a work that is different from his previous films, and is supposed to be more attractive and popular.
Popular stars include Amy Adams, Gary Oldman, Julianne Moore and Janet Jason Lee.
Successful Pulitzer Prize-winning screenwriter Tracy Letts, who is also a good actor, stars in the film as the lead psychiatrist.
A suspenseful story revolving around a mysterious crime, and dealing with exciting topics such as voyeurism, phobias, delinquent children, guilt, and serial killers.
However, there is something wrong with this powerful mix that is difficult to pinpoint accurately, but the result is that the film did not live up to the expectations expected of it, or even come close to them.
Initially, it was scheduled to show “The Woman in the Window” more than two years ago, specifically in October 2019, and was already ready for the show, but as a result of the negative reactions that it was met with during the test shows, the company “Fox” that produced it decided to postpone its presentation and conduct some Adjustments to it after re-shooting some scenes. Then it happened that "Disney" bought "Fox" and decided to make further modifications to the film, and in the end it was sold to the "Netflix" platform to start its first show on the platform on May 14.
Amy Adams plays Anna Fox, a semi-reclusive child therapist, agoraphobia, who lives alone in a spacious apartment in Harlem, New York, in an old house. Her only hobby is stalking next door, including a wealthy family of father, mother, and son. A teenager, she recently moved to live in the opposite house, and Anna enjoys watching over them, but mysterious events begin to happen with the neighbors that end with a crime that she witnesses.. When she reports to the police, everyone tells her that everything she claims is an illusion.
From the first moment, "The Woman in the Window" refers us to some of the masterpieces of world cinema whose influence is evident not only on the film, but on the novel before it, and among these masterpieces are Hitchcock's "Rear Window", starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly, and "Dark Alley" » Which starred Humphrey Bogart and Lorraine Bacall, and "Laura", which is one of the signs of the detective genre called "Movie Noir". Through these referrals, for which he makes a dramatic justification that the heroine loves to watch police films, the film defines his identity, affiliation, and quest to become one of these masterpieces.
The problem is that “The Woman in the Window” puts so many things together, as if it were an encyclopedia of psychological diseases and plots of police films, which weighs the plot and distracts the viewer and makes him unable to identify, or sympathize, with the main character through whom we see events, the sick psychiatrist. herself, due to an accident she caused that led to the death of her husband and daughter. Although the film's running time is close to 100 minutes, but there are details that seem lacking, even great actors such as Gary Oldman, Julianne Moore and Janet Jason Lee appear as guests of honor in very few scenes, which may lead the viewer to wonder why they participated in this film!
The film, however, is filled with suspense, and almost every few minutes there is a significant event, unexpected plot twist, and many surprises, but perhaps too many.
Source:1
