'The Woman in the Window'- A Psychological Thriller
It is commonly known that sometimes our minds can play tricks on us and our entire realities can change. With that in mind, production companies can come up with ideas for any number of movies based off psychological issues. The idea that someone saw something that no one else believes is a trope in many thriller films. Psychological thrillers are meant to make us, the audience, question whether the character is actually losing their sanity or not. Hopefully this film will do an excellent job at story telling and we will be guessing until the end.
‘The Woman in the Window’ tells the story of an agoraphobic psychiatrist who sees something amiss in her neighbor’s home across the street. With a fear of places or situations that might cause her to panic and make her feel trapped, helpless or embarrassed, she doesn’t go out much. Dr. Anna Fox ends up befriending her neighbor from across the street while living in her NYC brownstone. She then starts keeping tabs on the family across the way and, thinking she is watching over the perfect family, sees something she shouldn’t have. From that moment on, her life changes in a way that she never could have predicted.
The story we are presented with is based off a novel of the same name written by Dan Mallory under the pseudonym A.J. Finn. He presents a story in which there is an unreliable female narrator telling a story of an apparent murder. What we are left with is a story involving a possible psychopath that will leave people on edge. The novel received so much praise that it, despite being released in only 2018, was chosen to become a feature length film. Mallory was involved in a scandal after lying about having cancer, but that did not keep the movie from being made, and his second novel is still being worked on.
‘The Woman in the Window’ stars Amy Adams, Gary Oldman, Anthony Mackie, Fred Hechinger, Wyatt Russell, Brian Tyree Henry, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Julianne Moore. The film was directed by Joe Wright who also worked on the films Hanna, Pan, and Darkest Hour. The screenplay for the film was written by Tracy Letts based directly off the novel by Dan Mallory. It was produced by Scott Ruden who has worked on numerous award winning films, Eli Bush who was best known for producing Lady Bird, and Anthony Katagas who worked on 12 Years a Slave. ‘The Woman in the Window’ was set to release on May 15, 2020, but with the Coronavirus Pandemic, it has been pulled momentarily from the release window.