Overview
They start off in text, drawing in readers with their mysteries, twists and psychological thrills. They focus on women in murky situations, and make that fact known in their titles. Then, after literary success, they jump to the screen. That's the path that Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train both took — for better in one case, for worse in the other — and now it's The Woman in the Window's turn.
Based on the 2018 novel by AJ Finn, The Woman in the Window follows Dr Anna Fox (Amy Adams, Hillbilly Elegy), a psychologist who also suffers from extreme agoraphobia. After befriending Jane Russell (Julianne Moore, After the Wedding), the woman who lives across the street, she cries foul when her new pal disappears — but neither Jane's husband Alistair (Gary Oldman, Crisis) nor the cops (including Godzilla vs Kong's Brian Tyree Henry) are willing to listen.
As well as firmly falling into clear genre — aka mystery-thrillers that reference women in their monikers — The Woman in the Window is obviously taking some cues from Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. And, in both the initial theatrical trailer and the just-released Netflix trailer, director Joe Wright (Atonement, Hanna, Darkest Hour) doesn't shy away from that comparison.
Whether it's worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as one of Hitchcock's best films or suffers a fate closer to The Girl on the Train won't be discovered until the movie hits Netflix on Friday, May 14 — a year to the day it was originally scheduled to release in cinemas, but then the pandemic hit. Now, The Woman in the Window is going straight to streaming, as the likes of Hamilton, Mulan and Soul all have over the past year.
However it turns out, The Woman in the Window has amassed a wide-ranging cast, with Possessor's Jennifer Jason Leigh and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier pair Anthony Mackie and Wyatt Russell all popping up. Lady Bird and Little Women alum Tracy Letts pops up too, and wrote the film's screenplay.
Check out the latest trailer below:
The Woman in the Window will be available to stream via Netflix from Friday, May 14.
Top image: Melinda Sue Gordon.