BEFORE: I'm late getting this posted, I know - even though I've slowed down to just four films a week, I still have two jobs and a work schedule that often extends until 2 am, which means I get home at 3 am if the trains aren't running all the way home and I have to take a shuttlebus. As you might imagine, my sleep schedule is even worse than it was before - I used to stay up late watching movies, now I stay up late sweeping movie theaters, and I wish I could say that's an improvement. Well, it's some form of improvement because I'm getting paid to do that, but so far that's the only benefit. It's nice to have a second paycheck, but it comes at a cost, I'm always tired and achy and I can't wait to line up some other job where I'm not reaching under movie theater seats to pull out mystery items of food that have maybe been there for a while. Let's just say I've seen some things.
Amy Adams carries over from "Hillbilly Elegy".
THE PLOT: An agoraphobic woman living alone in New York begins spying on her new neighbors, only to witness a disturbing act of violence.
AFTER: This is one of those films from the "unreliable narrator" category, similar to "The Girl on the Train". I doubt this film would have been greenlit if that other film based on a book hadn't done well. This time the main character is on medication for her condition, but also drinks alcohol, which of course is not recommended. One of the possible side-effects is hallucinations, which then of course calls into question everything that we're seeing through her eyes. Something tipped me off pretty early to the possibility that maybe even some of the characters weren't real, similar to, you know, those two very famous films that pulled that trick before. I was willing to bet it was her therapist that wasn't really there, but I guess I got that wrong.
Anna Fox is a therapist of some sort, who works with children who have been traumatized, but she's also an agoraphobic, so she somehow works remotely and never leaves her house. This all seems very pandemically appropriate, doesn't it? How many people are STILL working remotely, either by choice or over lingering COVID-19 concerns? Some people set up their home offices and now may be reluctant to give them up, considering that working from home gives them more time to spend with their families, or it's just easier to get into relaxing mode after their work is done, because they're already home. Who needs to commute in this day and age, if they don't have to? Also, she's got a pretty sweet Manhattan (?) townhouse, which is like six floors high, and it hasn't been broken down into twelve different apartments yet, so I guess if you've got that kind of situation, you want to hang on to it, and spend as much time there as possible.
She does have a basement tenant, however, and that apartment has its own entrance, which makes sense, only David insists on coming in through the main entrance, or spending time on the main floor late at night, only because that's very creepy when it happens, and this movie needed to generate startling moments at every possible opportunity. Eventually we learn that David has some kind of shady past he's running away from, he's not even supposed to BE outside Connecticut because that's some kind of parole violation, but maybe he's not a villain and this is all just another red herring. David does help out around the house in a handyman capacity, and he does clean the eggs off the stoop when the trick-or-treaters want to prank the weird lady who won't leave her house.
Anna also takes to watching the new neighbors across the street, and that's when films like "Rear Window" get plot-checked here, because OF COURSE they moved to NY from Boston and OR COURSE there are shady circumstances in their past, and OF COURSE they all come across the street, one by one, and they all want to meet their new neighbors. Doesn't everybody who has shady pasts go door to door and introduce themselves to all the people who they don't want to meet? This is probably the most glaring NITPICK POINT in the film, because New Yorkers just don't do this, you could live next door to somebody for 20 years and never learn their name, that's much more likely in the Big Apple. Most people just nod or wave to their neighbors and then just go about their business. But then, if that happened, we wouldn't have a story here, now, would we?
After Anna takes to spying on the neighbors with her telephoto lens (though, umm, she never seems to get around to taking pictures, just looking through the lens - NITPICK POINT, why not just use binoculars, then?) she sees a violent crime, and then the rest of the film is spent proving that she saw what she saw. Only there was great confusion over who and what she saw, the person she saw killed is still alive, only she's a different person. What? To justify all of this, the film sort of has to bend itself over, backwards and sideways to explain what she saw and where all the miscommunication started happening. It's not believable in the slightest way, but I appreciate the effort, if that makes any sense. No spoilers here, but I'm fairly sure this particular dodge hasn't been used before.
For future reference, if we're stuck inside again for long periods of time, maybe cyber-stalking your new neighbors and mixing your prescription drugs with alcohol is not the best use of your time. Maybe just binge-watch something, or learn how to bake bread?
Also starring Gary Oldman (last seen in "Hunter Killer"), Anthony Mackie (last seen in "Freedomland"), Julianne Moore (ditto)), Fred Hechinger (last seen in "Vox Lux"), Wyatt Russell (last seen in "Shimmer Lake"), Brian Tyree Henry (last seen in "Hotel Artemis"), Jennifer Jason Leigh (last seen in "Welcome to Me"), Tracy Letts (last seen in "Elvis & Nixon"), Jeanine Serralles (last seen in "Inside Llewyn Davis"), Mariah Bozeman, with archive footage of James Stewart (last seen in "A Kiss Before Dying"), Lauren Bacall (last seen in "Mr. North")
RATING: 5 out of 10 glasses of wine
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