Llast title of its kind psycho-thriller available on Netflix it seems born from the mythical and mourned Lina Wertmüller: The woman in the house opposite the girl by the window. Already here we have several indications on what to expect: the window is an important cinematic topos, from The window on the courtyard from Alfred Hitchcock to recent The woman at the window with Amy Adams.
What better place to observe a crime, or an alleged person, that a window overlooking the hypothetical scene of the crime? The length and the absurdity of the title itself, however, also make us understand that perhaps it is not a real fear title, rather than one dark comedy.
The woman in the house opposite the girl by the window: the plot
Kristen Bell plays Anna, an artist still in mourning for both death of daughter than for the end of his marriage with the psychologist Douglas (Michael Ealy): his days pass between improbable baked recipes, glasses of wine (many), pills and many hours spent at the window.
That was until Neil (Tom Riley) very attractive single father moves with his daughter Emma (Samsara Yett) exactly in front of Anna who, from her privileged position, she convinces herself that she witnessed a murder: something that will first attract the curiosity and then the suspicion of the detective Lane (Christina Anthony).
Series rejected by critics
The first few minutes of the first episode, to tell the truth, they promise very well: Anna makes it clear what her problem is “My husband used to tell me that I have an overactive imagination,” she says, “that’s why he left me.” All this while sitting in her pajamas and robe facing the window with some frozen vegetables on hands that got burned trying to take a pan without pot holders out of the oven.
After that, always dressed like that, she scapicolla to school to carry the daughter he no longer has arousing the concern and pain of other mothers. In short, the premises are initially all there, but the reality is that the series, except for the last episode, neither takes off nor in a sense, the actual psychological thriller, nor in the horror parody.
From the Guardian he gets only two stars “This show is meant to mock psychological thrillers, but the result is not funny, just ugly “as The Hollywood Reporter states:”The woman in the house opposite the girl by the window struggle to balance two genders, but it fails in both “.
The subgenus
There aren’t many examples, but this genre exists, the genre of mysteries about single women who think they have witnessed murders and, therefore, The woman in the house opposite the girl by the window, which somehow wants to make fun of this trend, can be categorized as a separate sub-genre.
On closer inspection the opportunity to make a good product, but also to open the debate on a stereotyped gender representation, there would be, but in the eight episodes, fortunately short, this does not happen.
Kristen Bell is Anna. (Netflix)
Anna joins a host of protagonists (The woman at the window, The girl on the train), prisoners of their own privileges, which the paranoia leads to wanting to seek justice, but they are not believed either by friends or by the police, out of indifference or out of true misogyny.
The series loses its challenge precisely because it tries at the same time to unravel a real mystery episode after episode, and at the same time to make fun of the genre that requires this type of operation.
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