This review contains spoilers for the Netflix film “The Woman in the Window.”
Snow falls down on Dr. Anna Fox (Amy Adams) every morning as she wakes up from hiding all night under her covers. She is plagued by agoraphobia — a constant fear of the world around her — and hasn’t left her home for the past 10 months. Her mental health is on the decline, and her alcoholic tendencies have only reinforced the fear she holds to most situations. However, this all changes upon the arrival of the Russell family in the home across the street, 101 West 121st St.
Fox is the leading character in Netflix’s new psychological thriller, “The Woman in the Window,” a film that will leave viewers unsure of what is reality and what is a product of Fox’s ongoing mental illness. Unable to leave her home, Fox often spends her time invested in the lives of her neighbors, like the Russells that move in across the street. The Russell family, consisting of the domineering and controlling father Alistair (Gary Oldman), Jane (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and their troubled son Ethan (Fred Hechinger), will be the cause of her obsession over the span of their first week in the neighborhood beginning on Halloween night.
Ethan quickly introduces himself to Fox, who lets the 16-year-old inside her home despite some hesitation. Upon first impression, it is clear that the teen struggles with reading social cues as he makes himself comfortable in her home without any qualms. He plays with Fox’s cat Punch and speaks to her as if she was his own mother, a role that she falls into seeing as she has a daughter of her own, Olivia (Mariah Bozeman), and works as a child psychologist. The very next night, after a fainting episode when she attempts to leave her home, Fox has the pleasure of meeting Jane Russell (Julianne Moore). Russell lets herself into Fox’s home and spends an evening of wine drinking and banter as she discusses her relationship with Alistair and Ethan. She reveals there are troubles within the family dynamic, particularly having to do with Alistair’s treatment towards her and her son, but also with what Jane considers failures in raising Ethan.
Like her son, Jane comes off as rather strange, as neither of them are great at understanding the boundaries that people typically hold between strangers. Yet, this is what allows them to get close to Fox, a relationship that will be vital as the climax of the film occurs: the murder of Jane Russell.
When looking out Thursday night, a couple days after their arrival, Fox notices that Jane is arguing with someone inside the house — presumed to be Alistair — who is hidden behind the wall between their house windows. She grabs her camera and zooms in to see Jane get stabbed in the stomach, who screams and looks at Fox as she falls to the ground. Fox attempts to get to Jane, as the police dispatcher is unhelpful in understanding her pleas for them to come, but it all goes black when she leaves her home in an attempt to aid her new friend. She wakes up the following morning surrounded by Detectives Little (Brian Tyree Henry) and Norelli (Jeanine Serrales) along with Alistair, Ethan, and strangely, “Jane Russell” (Jennifer Jason Leigh).
This is where the confusion and chaos comes into the film as viewers are led to believe that perhaps it is Fox who is crazy. Jane Russell, who Fox claims to have seen murdered, is standing right before her eyes. Yet, this is not the woman she saw nor the woman who she spent an entire evening with. Alistair and Ethan — who up until this moment had left the impression that he was on Anna’s side — both treat her as if she is insane and off her medications, a perception that coincides with that of the police.
Fox falls into her alcoholism, recurrently having conversations with her husband who has also concluded that she is psychotic. She researches Alistair’s background and can find nearly nothing, all roads pointing to the fact that he is covering his tracks, and that the woman who she knows to be Jane Russell is not real. Reports come back saying that he transferred to Boston after the death of a secretary, and as the detectives will later corroborate, the woman who introduced herself as Jane Russell is indeed who she says she is.
Fox is terrorized by the Russell family who degrade her. She is stalked by an unknown person who watches her from within her home and even threatens her with images they took of her sleeping in the middle of the night. She is continuously undermined, gaslit and made to believe that she is on some medication-induced hallucination. Viewers are put into Fox’s perspective, which allows the film to be so intoxicating since it is impossible to know what is real. Is Fox’s “Jane Russell” even alive? Has this whole murder been created in her mentally ill mind? If this murder did occur, who did it and why?
Adams’ performance only adds to the plot as she amazingly portrays Fox’s decline into insanity and medication abuse. In addition, the terror that Oldman and Hechinger are able to create with such menacing characters makes for a shocking film that will leave viewers on the edge of their seats. To uncover the reality of the alleged murder of Jane Russell, viewers can screen the hour and 41 minute film on Netflix and delve into the mind of Fox as her world crumbles and unfolds.
Carisa DeSantos is an Entertainment intern for the spring 2021 quarter. She can be reached at caridesantos@gmail.com.