Window on a tedious tale: try watching something else

Joe Wright’s adaptation of the AJ Finn novel The Woman in the Window has finally found a home on Netflix after being delayed due to Covid-19.

Frankly, The Woman in the Window should never have seen the light of day.

Amy Adams (Arrival, The Master, The Fighter) leads a brilliant cast as Dr Anna Fox, an agoraphobe who lives alone in Manhattan and witnesses a brutal murder.

What follows is a tedious, boring, and predictable 1 hr 40 min slog trying to figure out what happened. Any tentative audience member will have guessed the ending only 20 minutes into the film.

Amy Adams is among a brilliant cast.

The first act is poorly edited, with no sense of cohesive storytelling. It feels disjointed as though random scenes have been stuck together.

Adams and the rest of the cast do what they can in their respective roles, but Academy Award Winners Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour) and Julianne Moore (Still Alice) don’t get nearly enough screen time to make an impact.

Star power is not enough to compensate for this lifeless script that lacks tension and throws twists and turns that often miss their mark with the audience.

While the logic within the film is eye-rollingly bad, praise has to be given to Wright’s direction and the production design.

Overall, The Woman in the Window is bad, but not bad enough to enjoy it for its shortcomings.

Netflix has an abundance of content available, so you will definitely find something better to watch, and if not, an early night is still a better choice than The Woman in the Window.