Netflix’s The Woman In The Window Fails To Impress The Critics; Gets Labelled ‘Thinly Sketched’

Woman in the Window, Netflix’s thriller Psychological series Starring Amy Adams, has failed to impress the movie critics.

The movie, directed by Joe Wright, is based on the best-selling novel with the same name written by AJ Finn.

The movie sees Adams playing Dr Anna Fox, a psychologist with agoraphobia who is trying to convince her neighbors and the police that she saw the murder.

Effectively Moody

Reviewers called the film’s familiarity with “slightly sketched” and “muddy”, but also that it “effectively moody”.

The feature, starring Gary Oldman, Julianne Moore and Anthony Mackie, was first developed by 20th Century Fox and was set to be released in October 2019, but was rewritten to editing after the audience’s response to the test.

After Fox was bought by Disney, the film was lingering around schedule, before being delayed due to the pandemic, and eventually sold to Netflix.

What Are The Critics Saying?

Now that it’s finally over, The Guardian couldn’t wait to turn it into a blunder by giving the film a couple of stars – just TWO.

Benjamin Lee wrote that Adams “gives a flat performance as an agoraphobe unravelling a dull mystery” in Wright’s “cursed mis-step” of a movie.

Her character is “thinly sketched” and “flatly acted by Adams”, Lee added, calling it “another off-key performance from an actor still weathering the horror of last year’s heinous Hillbilly Elegy”.

“She leans into screechy histrionics, as does a wincingly hammy Oldman (a scene of the pair trying to loudly overact over each other is one of the film’s many low points), and what stings is that arguably her greatest work to date was in Sharp Objects, playing another tortured addict in another adaptation of a hit thriller, a turn so accomplished it’s hard to believe we’re now watching the same person.”

Elsewhere, film aggregator Rotten Tomatoes said: “Woman in the Window will have audiences closing their curtains”.

Rare Positive Reviews

On the contrary, Hollywood Reporter found merit in the enactment of AJ Finn’s novel, with Adams’ performance, but they were still looking for more.

“Effectively moody but offering frustratingly skin-deep chills, The Woman in the Window underestimates its hero in more than ways than one,” said Sheri Linden.

“A work of snack-food readability but little substance, the novel is seasoned with skilful misdirection that can’t hide how ultrabasic-bordering-on-threadbare its core psychology is,” she continued.

“The movie, which ups the violence a bit, ends on a slightly different but no less wanting note, and never matches the nuance and intensity of Adams’ performance, with its fully alive and unpredictable guardedness, prevarication and naked emotion.”