"The Woman in the Window" a juicy potboiler with a pedigreed cast but an underwhelming payoff

 

The Woman in the Window (2021)

One wouldn’t be blamed for assuming “The Woman in the Window” is the follow-up to “The Girl on the Train.” Both films are about women on the verge, turning to alcoholism, and becoming witnesses to a woman's disappearance, but it’s not related. In actuality, this slick Hollywood pastiche in the most classical mode is an adaptation of A.J. Finn’s 2018 best-seller. In this case, after the COVID quarantine, the titular woman in the window is like the audience surrogate. Originally scheduled to be released theatrically by Fox 2000 Pictures in the fall of 2019 before being delayed for poor test screenings and then taken off the release schedule due to the pandemic, “The Woman in the Window” has finally found a home on Netflix. It should feel like old news, but watching this cleverly tantalizing Hitchcock riff at home on the couch seems appropriate. 

Amy Adams is acting the hell out of Anna Fox, an agoraphobic child psychologist who hasn’t set foot outside her enviably cavernous Manhattan brownstone in 10 months. Living alone with her Persian cat Punch, she remains separated from her husband, Ed (Anthony Mackie), but he and their 8-year-old daughter Olivia (Mariah Bozeman) check in on the reg. She has her groceries delivered and a house visit by her own shrink (Tracey Letts, who wrote the script). But Anna numbs her existence with medication, bottle after bottle of wine, and classic movies forever playing on her TV. When she notices the Boston broker Alistair Russell (Gary Oldman) and his family moving in across the street, she first meets Ethan (Fred Hechinger), the 15-year-old son who’s strange but harmless. Not long after on Halloween night, a woman (Julianne Moore) Anna assumes is Ethan’s mother, Jane Russell, stops by, and the two women hit it off. Curiosity then gets the better of Anna when she sees Jane being stabbed from her window, forcing Anna to attempt to go outside. Unfortunately, when the cops arrive, Anna is soon introduced to the real Jane Russell (Jennifer Jason Leigh) for the first time. But who was that other woman from the other night, and where is she? Is Anna’s mixing medication and alcohol sending her into a mental breakdown?

Director Joe Wright (2017’s “Darkest Hour”) is blatantly paying homage to Hitchcock, particularly “Rear Window.” If you’re going to borrow, you might as well set that intent early, as Wright does with a shot of Jimmy Stewart on Anna’s TV. Even Danny Elfman’s score is very Bernard Herrman-esque. Other times, Wright seems to be making his De Palma homage with overwrought visual choices, like blood spattering on the window in one of Anna’s hallucinations. It’s not hard to get caught up in the mystery and paranoia of this psychological thriller (which almost feels like a stage play, given playwright Tracey Letts’ work), even if the resolution is anticlimactic when what has really been going on gets revealed. 

Led by Amy Adams, a brilliant actor who can play unreliable and mentally unravel like no one else, everyone in the pedigreed cast is solid here — and a red herring. That includes Wyatt Russell, as Anna’s basement tenant David, and Jennifer Jason Leigh, though given a chilling entrance, is severely underused. There’s no scenery that Gary Oldman doesn’t eat, and Brian Tyree Henry makes the most out of Detective Little, balancing sympathy with skepticism next to Jeanine Serralles’ curt, no-nonsense partner. Julianne Moore’s screen-time is brief as “Jane Russell,” but she makes such an impression, particularly when we have the pleasure of watching two of the industry’s finest, most reliable actresses get drunk on red wine and play gin.

Through the process of elimination, the whodunit mystery comes down to two possible suspects. Of course, by the big climactic reveal, loose ends are wrapped up in one of those conventional “talking killer” speeches. Good thing, then, that there's a slasher-inspired rooftop finale, which is so ludicrously entertaining to include a nutty gag involving a garden hand rake that earns a howl and a gasp. Also, who doesn't love Chekhov's Rooftop Skylight? With just the right bottle of Mendoza red and no expectation that this will equal “Rear Window,” “The Woman in the Window” works as a juicy potboiler.

Grade: B -

Netflix is releasing “The Woman in the Window” (100 min.) for streaming on May 14, 2021.