Rating: R
Runtime: 1 hour, 40 minutes
Director: Joe Wright
Quick Impressions:
I’ve been excited for this movie for a long time, despite the fact that for the past year internet chatter about it has grown increasingly dire by the mention. I always enjoy Amy Adams. She has such insightful line delivery that as a writer I’ve always thought I’d love to have her delivering my dialogue. (Granted, I write novels, so unless she’s interested in volunteer work reading them back to me that won’t ever happen.) When Adams became attached to this project, I checked out the book from the library and immediately found a personal connection to the material.
Unlike protagonist Anna Fox, I’m not a full-blown agoraphobic, but for a while I was perilously close. When my daughter was born at twenty-five weeks for no reason doctors could discover, I immediately blamed myself for failing to keep her safe. She was doing her part, thriving, kicking, healthy. I couldn’t keep her inside. I let her down. When after one-hundred days she actually came home from the hospital (an outcome I’d been terrified to count on), I was determined I would never let her down again. I would protect her. During her NICU stay, we couldn’t visit her if we were sick, so I slowly developed a terror of illness and exposure that intensified instead of fading. Once she was home, I added to this a horror of accidentally injuring her, so I wouldn’t drive or go anywhere with her unless accompanied by another adult who made me feel safe.
This persisted for a long time, and I still have some issues. (I don’t count coughs in public anymore or inadvertently tense up when I hear one, so my spasming neck pain has improved.)
Then when my daughter was four, she said to me, “I want to be a daddy when I grow up.” I asked her, “Why do you want to be a daddy when you grow up?” She answered, “Because I want to drive the car.”
I realized I couldn’t let my daughter grow up thinking that only Daddies and Grandmas could drive the car, so I made a concerted effort to force myself to do things outside my comfort zone. I began driving again and eventually became comfortable going ordinary places (the store, the library) as the only adult. Now I can do these things, and I’m totally fine…until the slightest thing goes wrong. (At that point, I start to panic and feel like everyone’s looking at me, they hate me, they should hate me, I have to go home where I’m safe…I begin spiraling out of control. But usually if I call my husband, he can talk me down.) I have to say, I am much better now. Appearing on Jeopardy! was pretty far outside my comfort zone, and I’ve emerged from that experience much more courageous. The whole process has been immeasurably beneficial for my mental health.
So the story of an agoraphobic woman naturally appealed to me, especially because as a woman who is both mentally ill and insightful, I love stories that feature mentally ill people having insights, being told, “You just think that because you’re crazy,” and then turning out to be right all along. For obvious reasons, there’s deep, primal satisfaction in such scenarios for me.
I was less excited about Joe Wright as the director because I found his adaptation of Atonement centered on the wrong character. But I did like Darkest Hour. Also I thought Adams and Julianne Moore were inspired casting choices, and I usually like the work of Tracy Letts who adapted the novel for the screen, so I approached The Woman in the Window hopefully despite the discouraging rumors of its ongoing production woes.
The Good:
The Woman in the Window is clearly not the success it set out to be, but still, the film does a number of things well and is certainly worth watching, particularly if you’re a fan of a) Amy Adams b) A.J. Finn’s bestselling novel, or c) movies about mental illness and, particularly, trauma.
Adams is perfect in the role and just as I imagined the character (though admittedly, I read the novel after I knew she was cast as the lead). Movie Anna definitely appears to drink less than novel Anna. In the film, she indulges in a glass of red wine here and there. In the book, her drinking seems much more excessive and problematic, though that’s probably because as we read, we learn about the situation through her self-loathing narration. But overall, she depicts the character faithfully, and, as always, her line delivery is exceptional. She always describes both the character’s suffering and her insights as though she is experiencing them from the inside out.
If you’ve experienced trauma related to parenting yourself, then I recommend watching Adams move through Anna’s journey. It provides satisfying catharsis. Think of it as a gift to yourself. Forget if the movie’s working as well as it could. Don’t even try to solve the mystery. Watch for the experience of hearing Adams’s Anna express the irrational feelings of guilt she carries around inside. Cry along with her. Watch her lend her voice and her tears to feelings you’ve struggled to articulate. The experience is therapeutic, and the actress gives a great performance, even when the movie doesn’t do her any favors.
But now speaking of the mystery, I think that’s one area where the film succeeds fabulously. What is going on with that new family across the street? Did Anna actually witness Jane Russell’s murder? Did she imagine their entire conversation as everyone suggests? Was a crime committed, and who committed it?
In the book, I found this primary mystery relatively easy to figure out. (I was almost disappointed, honestly. While there were one or two minor points I needed cleared up, I figured out the “whodunnit” aspect of the book really quickly. Of course, just when I was feeling let down by the relatively obvious solution, the book absolutely knocked my socks off with the jaw-dropping reveal of a mystery I didn’t even know needed solving.)
In the movie, the solution to the exterior problem Anna is trying to solve is way less obvious. The mystery is better done. Watching, my husband and daughter had no idea what was going on. They suspected everyone. (Literally everyone! Every single time a character came on, my husband would say, “I don’t trust this person.”) (His reasons for not trusting them were always so clearly articulated, too. I started thinking, “Well no wonder this woman feels so paranoid and frightened. Everyone in her life is very shady.”)
The supporting cast in the film is particularly good (though not always utilized as well as they could be). Julianne Moore gives my favorite supporting performance (brief but crucial to a story-driving degree). Brian Tyree Henry is also good as a character I didn’t give much thought to in the novel. (I keep hoping Henry will get a part that makes everyone sit up and say, “This man deserves an Oscar!” This film won’t bring him that kind of acclaim, but he’s wonderful in the role all the same.) Fred Hechinger brings commendable complexity to Ethan, a role that could inspire a clumsily one-note performance. Of course, Gary Oldman’s great, especially in the moment when he first violently confronts Anna in her home. Too bad there’s not a bit more for him to do. And I’m always happy to see Wyatt Russell show up in a movie. I first noticed him in 22 Jump Street and thought, “He’s bringing so much charisma that this character seems more important than he ought to be.” Then I discovered he was the son of Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, which certainly explains his charisma. He brings tons of menace to David, the tenant.
I know Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor were supposed to score the film. Then because of production delays they were replaced by Danny Elfman (whose work on The Nightmare Before Christmas made such a positive impression on me that I’ll be impressed with him forever). Overall, I like Elfman’s score. When the music grew discordant and distorted, my daughter would cover her ears and exclaim, “Ugh! This is making me feel gross! It’s giving me anxiety!” Since the point of those moments is to make Anna’s interior state accessible to the audience, I’d say the score is succeeding fabulously. There were one or two times when I felt the music undermined the reality of a moment. (Adams’s acting would no doubt seem more natural if not accompanied by such melodramatic music.) But in general, I think Elfman’s score works very well.
On the whole, the film succeeds at showing us how it feels to struggle with agoraphobia, panic, and anxiety. It is also relentlessly suspenseful with a mood that is never less than unsettling.
Best Scene:
I loved Julianne Moore as the first Jane Russell and wanted the scene with her to last longer. (It’s brief in the book, too, but felt longer as I was reading it than it seems in the movie.) This scene is quite compelling, and Moore and Adams have good screen chemistry. The conversation with Moore allows Adams to show us the way Anna initially appears unpleasant and anxious, then eventually transitions into her more natural personality once she becomes more relaxed. We can also watch Anna listen carefully to everything Jane is saying. It’s easy to imagine her as a competent psychologist when we see how she interacts here once she feels more at ease. My husband found this situation so tense because of Jane’s apparent unreliability and was so endearingly concerned for Anna. But, of course, I already know what happens in the story, so I just enjoyed the energy of the scene. I think I would watch a whole movie called Amy Adams and Julianne Moore Drink Wine While Pretending One of Them is a Psychologist.
Best Scene Visually:
My husband loved the movie visually, particularly its vibrant, mood-setting colors. I think early on we get a great use of windows and shadows of windows, and I like all of the quick looks at old film clips, recreating the experience of reading the novel.
But now, this is tricky. The image that sticks with me actually comes from the scene I think works least well in the entire movie. Still, the image does stick with me. At a moment of confrontation, Anna looks into the other room and sees something there that does not belong. And then she begins to feel that everyone is looking at her. They are looking at her, of course, but the way the film visually mimics the sensations of experiencing panic here is quite artfully done.
What this scene is doing is superb. I do have a problem with what it is failing to do, but I’ll come back to that in a moment.
Best Action Sequence:
We get a flashback I find remarkable in its narrative efficiency. We get more of Anna’s backstory here in about three minutes than I would have thought possible. (To me, the slight problem is that while we can make quick intellectual sense of what we’re told, we told don’t have time to feel the heft of it.)
As you might expect, the movie’s last big action sequence is also quite gripping.
The Negatives:
A frustrating thing about the way pop culture works is that once a movie is declared by consensus “bad,” then any of its good elements become underrated and undervalued by association.
Just like in Hillbilly Elegy, Adams is giving a really good performance here. But it won’t matter because all the buzz about this movie is focused on why it failed. And honestly, the movie does let Adams down. There are some moments when her entirely earnest acting is eclipsed by strange musical or lighting choices, and then the whole scene seems melodramatic, despite the fact that the actress is playing the moment just right.
The movie’s biggest failure in my mind is the way that it all but drops the second huge mystery of the novel. Why is Anna Fox trapped in that house? She’s a gifted (formerly respected) child psychologist. What has brought her to this low, dark place? Why has her husband left her? Why doesn’t she have custody of her child? Why does she spend her entire day drinking heavily, mixing up her meds, and staring furtively at the neighbors?
The problem with the movie is that Anna’s backstory is not presented as deftly as it unfolds in the novel. At first we get the proper slow trickle of information, but later on, it’s almost like the movie feels it’s running out of time and just dumps a big, heavy explanation on top of us. This feels crushing in the moment, but worse, it also feels ultimately unimportant. My daughter expressed the exact problem perfectly. “Why should I care about this?”
In the novel, we get a reveal that I didn’t even know to expect. It hit me with resonance impossible to overstate. I was shocked. I had never seen it coming, and yet it explained so much. It explained everything.
In the movie, we’re not given enough incentive to care. The gradual build-up to the big reveal is botched. Essentially, there is no gradual build-up, and, worse, it doesn’t feel like a big reveal. Plus the way the revelation scene is handled makes Anna look a lot crazier than she actually is. In the book, you think, “Oh wow! I didn’t know any of this!” The movie leaves you with the impression that Anna herself is the one who didn’t know. The way the scene plays out is certainly artistic, but I think it would work better on the stage than in a film. When I read the book, this particular element was the most powerful part of the entire thing, and the movie almost completely ruins it.
Purists who love the novel may also rankle at other omissions. I was sad to see the message board plot thread disappear, but cutting it seems like a practical choice for the screen. (It’s never particularly thrilling to watch scene after scene of someone typing posts on a computer.) Similarly, some of the choices made with David are giant departures from the book, but end up working to the film’s advantage, making the ending much harder to anticipate, generating far more misdirection and suspense.
The one change that I don’t quite get is the omission of Anna’s scene with the second Jane Russell late in the book. What baffles me is this. Why cast Jennifer Jason Leigh if you’re barely going to use her in the movie? Material wouldn’t have to be added for her. Jane Russell #2 has a much bigger part in the novel. Ever since I liked her so much recently in Annihilation, I’m always excited to see Leigh show up. If she’s there, give her something to do! My best guess is that the late scene with Leigh’s character is left out of the film in order to keep Anna inside the house all the time. But if I cast Jennifer Jason Leigh in a movie, I would give her something to do.
Overall:
If you’re working on processing your own trauma, The Woman in the Window might be a very helpful watch. Even if you’re simply bored and searching for a good Netflix option to fill the time, it’s not a bad pick. Amy Adams gives a great lead performance, and the persistently unsettling mood makes the mystery element work even better than it does in the book. But if you want to get the most out of this story, read A.J. Finn’s novel first. It delivers one brilliant twist, and the movie delivers a more suspenseful murder mystery. For the most complete experience, read the book, then watch the film, and hang on to the best of both!