The screen adaptation of The Woman In The Window, a film by Netflix begins with an agoraphobic woman called Anna Fox, living alone in a sprawling Manhattan home except for a token company of subterranean tenant- David. Besides her ongoing battle with agoraphobia, Anna is struggling with signs of depression, substance abuse including her prescription drugs and alcohol. The only way she is maintaining a semblance of sanity is by keeping tabs on her neighbours.
Yes, it sounds outright creepy and problematic to begin with. But surprisingly besides giving an half hearted advice, her psychiatrist is not really pursuing for shunning this habit. So then Anna continues to keep tabs on who’s who in her neighbourhood by watching them through her gigantic French windows; no matter what should be the time of day or night. As one can imagine, that neighbourhood has more or less declared her as a crazy lunatic loner which results in the egg splashing on the Halloween.
On one such watchful day, she notices that a new family named Russell has moved in the apartment across from her. Somehow, in a weird fashion, their son- Ethan approaches her by introducing himself as a new neighbour and manages to enter into her home. His first impression of being a lost, abused teenager who is suffering under his tyrant father creates a soft spot in Anna’s heart who happens to be a former child psychologist. She promises to help him to face his father’s dictatorship, come what may!
Then just as suddenly as the kid, Anna bumps into Jane Russell- quite literally on that fateful Halloween evening. They quickly get along just like an house on fire. Only issue being Anna has started leaning towards safety of Jane and Ethan in quite an obsessive way. As is evident, this doesn’t make things easy between her and her new neighbours, not to forget the eventual involvement of police. From here on, the film becomes a tad hazy just like Anna’s recollections of her past.
There are series of events one after another, stung together and presented in such a wayward manner that it becomes difficult for a sound minded viewer to find any sort of connection. So even though the original story adapted from the bestselling novel of the same name by A. J. Finn is gripping and hooks us from the word Go; the screen adaptation however leaves a lot to be desired.
The direction is good in parts like the montages of Anna’s addiction filled drowning with Hollywood film classics, the last few minutes of Anna gathering all it up and few other shots, discussing these further might give away the essence of the story. Amy Adams is simply superb at the task in hand of looking disheveled, haggard, drunk and outright bonkers to any layperson. Since most of the screen time is shouldered by her awesome presence, it becomes more than bearable. The supporting cast is all stars with notable presence of Gary Oldman, Anthony Mackie, Julianne Moor and Jennifer Jason Leigh. But audiences are bound for some disappointment as there is hardly any good usage of such noteworthy talents.
All in all, this is good for one time watch only. We can surely look forward to Netflix for more such adaptations, hoping to be more engrossing and entertaining than this one.