An era ends with the prominent, enigmatic thriller “The Woman in the Window”: As the last production of the label “Fox 2000” it lands on Netflix.
In the hit list of house wisdom, history that repeats itself ranks high. Especially in America this “truism” is loved like the mother of all self-fulfilling prophecies. Film stories repeat themselves all the more, of which genre cinema supposedly only knows a handful, which it constantly varies anew. Film studios understood early on that their viewers, believing that they were looking for the new, always resort to the familiar. People love surprises, but they love their rituals even more.
The title of the Hollywood psychological thriller “The Woman in the Window”, which has been successful on Netflix worldwide since the beginning of the week, is already a déjà vu. Best-selling author AJ Finn (actually: Daniel Mallory) took it over for his debut novel from a classic film noir directed by Fritz Lang in 1944. He had copied the plot idea himself from another film, as the critics attested shortly after his surprise success – “Copycat”, Jon Amiel’s thriller about a mentally ill criminal psychologist who suffers from claustrophobia. That Finn had invented his official biography including a false Oxford degree, he excused with his own personality disorder, which led him to obsessively lie. In any case, he couldn’t be accused of not being able to empathize with his protagonist.
In the film adaptation, Amy Adams plays child psychologist Anna Fox, who suffers from claustrophobia among other problems due to trauma that is revealed late in the film. Fortunately, the domicile she hardly dares to leave is a historic New York townhouse in Harlem; big enough to get lost in. Or play the lead role as a creepy mansion in a horror film. Part of Fox’s personality disorder, which is explained to us in several psychological sessions, is an excessive curiosity towards other people – actually not bad for a child psychologist.
She satisfies this curiosity behind the window pane while watching her new neighbors from across the street: Gary Oldman and Jennifer Jason Leigh adorn the cast list as a married couple, Fred Hechinger is the teenage son Fox is about to diagnose with mental illness. In fact, this is the kind of psychological thriller that only a minority has left with their cups in their closet.
Like another role model from film history, the wheelchair-bound press photographer in Hitchcock’s “The Window to the Courtyard”, Anna Fox has a powerful telephoto lens. And like James Stewart’s film character, you get something in front of the lens that looks like a murder.
In the victim, she thinks she recognizes the teenager’s real mother from opposite. We got to know her shortly before during a surprise visit. In fact, like in a boulevard play, dazzling secondary characters keep ringing at the protagonist’s door and paying their respects. As a talkative stranger, Julianne Moore manages to appear no less crazy than her hostess in a few minutes. It’s a shame that she has to leave this film so early, the two master actresses harmonize wonderfully. Fox can do less with two other permanent guests, the police inspector and his colleague. They just don’t believe a word she says.
It is strange that one of the plagiarized works is called “Copycat” of all things. The author of the template obviously made use of all conceivable sources like a magpie. Filmmaker Joe Wright noticed that too. Apparently in order not to make himself suspicious of plagiarism, he prefers to quote openly and directly from film history. Again and again he has his protagonist put on film noir classics from her DVD collection. Her favorite film is, how could it be otherwise, Hitchcock’s psychoanalysis thriller “I fight for you” with the famous dream sequence by Salvador Dalí. A good choice for a mentally ill psychologist.
“The Woman in the Window” is the classic case of the ambitious film adaptation of an ungrateful book. All Joe Wright can muster to save the obscure work is impressive form. But what a feast for the eyes he succeeds. He consistently uses the topic of claustrophobia to set the whole film indoors – including the surreal punch line of a car accident that the Amy Adams character remembers: Suddenly the wreck is in an adjoining room, where it is snowing from the ceiling.
The film was photographed by a master of comic anti-naturalism, the Frenchman Bruno Delbonnel (“The fabulous world of Amélie”). In a careful interplay of furnishings and light, he bathes the interior in matt crayon colors, which contrasts wonderfully with the film noir aesthetic of expressionistic semi-darkness. It’s a rare pleasure: while you are following a plot that becomes more and more dumb up to its grotesque, involuntarily comical finale, you admire images like those by Edward Hopper. And a select ensemble of actors. Danny Elfman wrote a fascinating film score for this, which leaves no void in the chamber play – until at the end, however, he is only allowed to touch dull fortissimo.
What a strange film – and what a strange turn in film history it served us. Originally, the 20th Century Fox film studio wanted to bring it to the cinema in 2019. The rights to the novel had been bought for an enormous sum before publication. Then Fox was sold to Disney, this is the last film that was produced for the now discontinued Fox 2000 label. On Disney’s own label “Disney Plus” it would have been a foreign body, so it is now on Netflix.
Yes, history is repeating itself in Hollywood right now, but not for good. Almost all of the major film studios were swallowed up by media groups, on Monday AT & T merged its Warner and Discovery holdings into a future major player in Internet television, and on Tuesday it became known that Amazon intends to acquire MGM. Classic cinema – it will soon be just a memory that can be quoted in films like this one.
The Woman in the Window. Watch it on Netflix. Directed by Joe Wright. 100 min.
