The Woman in the Window
2021 · Directed by Joe Wright
Original language: English
- crime
- mystery
- thriller
The story
An agoraphobic woman living alone in New York begins spying on her new neighbors only to witness a disturbing act of violence.
What it’s like
Cramped Manhattan interiors lit in sickly blue-grey and the flicker of television glow, with the camera pressing close into Amy Adams's face and framing her through window glass, banisters and doorframes. Joe Wright shoots in saturated, expressionist colour that shifts from warm amber lamplight in the apartment to cold, shadowed streets outside, and the house itself feels like a gilded cage. The score is restless and mannered, with strings that swell during scenes of spying and drop to unnerving near-silence when the rooms go still. Pacing is tense and rhythmically stop-start: long stretches of watching give way to sudden jolts of sound and quick cuts. Its vibe is anxious, paranoid and stylised, a noir-tinged thriller with a fragile, unreliable heroine whose grip on reality slips. It suits a late night alone with the lights low, or a viewer who likes psychological suspense with a hallucinatory edge. Violence is brief but sharp, with a car crash and a murder shown in shocking flashes rather than lingering gore; there is some alcohol and pill misuse, and the dread is more frightening than graphic. It is for people who enjoy Hitchcockian unease, unreliable narrators and glossy, claustrophobic style.
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