The Woman In The Window

DIRECTOR JOE WRIGHT

RELEASE DATE 15 MAY

THERE’S AN ENDLESS FASCINATION IN PEOPLEWATCHING, whether we admitto itor not. Aflash glimpse ofsomeone walking by canspark awhole chainofthought. Itmightbe someone remarkably beautiful, or surprisingly strange. Maybe

STARRING

AMY ADAMS, JULIANNE MOORE, GARY OLDMAN, ANTHONY MACKIE, JENNIFER JASON LEIGH, WYATT

RUSSELL, TRACY LETTS, BRIAN TYREE-HENRY

their outfitis extraordinary, or they are behaving ina way thatmakes them unforgettable. The danger is thatapassing glance becomes afixation, especially onthose closest to us, andleads us down uncomfortable or even perilous roads. That’s the riskinJoe Wright’s new psychologicalthriller, The Woman In The Window.

Based on The Sunday Times bestseller this is a film with deep roots in cinema history. You’ll immediately spot the connection to Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window

CERTIFICATE TBC

RUNNING TIME TBC

in the heroine who becomes convinced that her neighbours are hiding a murderous secret, but there are ties to other classics, like Spellbound and Vertigo, via ’90s hits like Single White Female. Yet although this has the same creep and terror as

those efforts, it promises a whole new set of complications, and some deeply flawed characters.

Amy Adams stars as Dr Anna Fox, a child psychologist crippled by agoraphobia and confined to her house. She’s on anti-anxiety medication to try to control her symptoms, but can still be reduced to helpless terror by schoolchildren knocking on her door, or anything that risks upsetting her carefully controlled world.

Anna spends her days watching old films and drinking too much wine, but it’s her other hobby, staring out at her neighbours, that causes the However, one night, Anna sees what appears to be Jane’s murder in the Russells’ home. She calls the police, but her furious neighbour, Alistair Russell (Gary Oldman), denies that anything untoward has happened, and to prove it he trots out his wife, Jane. The only problem is that

“You’ll immediately spot the connection to

Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window in the heroine who becomes convinced that her neighbours are hiding a murderous secret, but there are ties to other classics, like

Spellbound and Vertigo”

problems. When the well-to-do Russell family moves in across the street, Anna starts obsessing over their apparently pictureperfect lives.

After a rare and disastrous attempt to venture out, Anna meets Julianne Moore’s likeable Jane, the mother of the family, and the pair strike up a quick friendship. she looks a heck of a lot like Jennifer Jason Leigh, and not at all like the woman Anna met before. Did Anna imagine the other Jane and her murder, powered by a hallucinatory combination of wine and drugs and old films? Who is the real Jane Russell? As events unravel, itseems thatAnnacan’t trustanyone, evenherself, andshe can’tbe entirely sure ifany crime has even takenplace.

To wring every last trace oftensionfromthis tightset-up, Wrighthas gatheredastellarsupporting cast: Anthony Mackie as Anna’s husband; Brian Tyree Henry as the detective assignedto the case; WyattRussellas Anna’s lodger; andEighth Grade’s FredHechinger as the Russells’ sonEthan. The story also gives Wrightthe chance to explore his talent for psychologicaldepth more thanever before. He seemedto relishdelving deep into his characters’ hiddendesires inAtonement andThe Soloist–andof course zoomedinon WinstonChurchill’s private life to Oscar-winning effect withOldmanintheir last collaboration, 2017’s Darkest Hour.

There should, inother words, be thrills to spare as Annatries to workoutwhat has really happened. Ifyou likedThe Girl On The Train or Gone Girl, this is going to be rightup your alley –or rather, rightacross the street fromyou, staring into your windows atnight. Helen O’Hara

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