Review: The Woman in the Window
Is it really that bad?
Hello all, so I decided to do something a little bit different with the blog this week and instead focus more on a subject I know very well; movies!!!
Recently I saw a trailer for this movie called The Woman in the Window, and at the time I knew nothing about it but I thought it looked pretty good.
Well, the movie came out the next day (God I miss the days of movie theaters where you could anticipate movies months in advance) and the reviews were... well not great. In fact, the words “dull” “junk” and “sucked” came up quite a few times in many different reviews. One person even went so far as to call it “The Worst Best Movie Ever Made” so I guess that’s a compliment?
The reviews were actually a surprise, I mean this is a movie starring Amy Adams, Julianne Moore & Gary Oldman for God’s sake, how bad could it possibly be?!
Well, what was interesting to me was when my dad, a pretty harsh movie critic, said not only that the movie wasn’t bad, it was actually pretty good. So, on one of my usual exciting Friday nights, sitting on my computer with SpongeBob on in the background, I decided to watch the movie for myself and let me tell you, this movie was... ok. Just ok, not good but nowhere near horrible.
The story is about a child psychologist named Anna, who suffers from agoraphobia. Her only human interactions are with her tenant David, her therapist, and occasionally her estranged husband. She soon takes an interest in her new neighbors, a rich family named the Russell’s, that move in across the street. When the wife, Jane, and son, Ethan, come over on two separate occasions, Anna begins to like and gets to know the family.
One night, Anna hears arguing from across the street and witnesses Jane being murdered. She calls the police who arrive to tell her that not only is Jane still alive but that Anna never met her. Anna, demanding to see her, is introduced to another woman claiming to be Jane.
While everyone thinks she’s just hallucinating, since she’s been known to mix her pills with alcohol, it’s one of those movies, Anna is convinced that something else is going on and that sets the stage for the tension in the movie.
That’s all I’m going to say with specifics but I’ll try to focus more on the pros and cons.
The movie of course is full of twists and unexpected events, one of which I must say is freaking incredible. By that I mean, this was the last thing I ever expected to happen because unlike most of thrillers, this isn’t the kind of twist you see. It’s really effective. It’s dark, tragic and just disturbing as hell. For me, it completely changes the direction and tone of the movie. But, this is also a problem because this is where I think the movie should have ended. It’s the perfect twist, something that nobody saw coming. But the movie goes on for another half hour and then sort of loses that edge. At that point, it just becomes cliched and you know where the movie is going to go. There’s another twist at the end I wasn’t expecting and thought was pretty cool but it wasn’t anything spectacular.
The absolute best thing about this movie is the acting. Like I said, with a cast list like that, how could you expect any different? Amy Adams gives one of her best performances and that is saying a whole hell of a lot with a woman that has flicks like Arrival, Enchanted & Doubt on her resume.
One thing this movie did that I didn’t like, in fact I hated, was the seizure inducing editing. It feels like they gave a bunch of five-year old’s on a sugar rush the film and told them to copy and paste wherever they wanted. In a way I do understand why they did it this way, wanting to give the audience the feeling of uneasiness, but it’s a little heavy handed at a few parts.
As a whole, this is not a bad movie, so why it’s getting all the hate it’s getting is beyond me. I’m writing this because this movie deserves a decent review. It does the job of entertaining the audience. That’s why we go to the movies, to be entertained.
If you haven’t seen it yet, I recommend you give it a shot. If you have, feel free to comment below and give me your input. Same for those who watch after reading this, I’d love to hear your opinions too, for what I believe is an unfairly underrated flick.