ronald h
I'm intrigued by 50-50 movies. Half of the critics pan them; the other half think they're worthy of praise. The Woman in the Fifth is one of those. I find that when a movie is divisive, it's usually rewarding to watch.
Watch this one.
Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski has adapted Douglas Kennedy's remarkable novel The Woman in the Fifth, and he has remained largely faithful to the novel's dreamlike mood, creepiness, and paranoia. The Paris in which the protagonist finds himself in is not the Paris of tourists, but the seedy underside. It's absorbing to look at. This is one of those films that is so rich in detail and nuance that it can be analyzed scene by scene.
Tom (Ethan Hawke) is an American writer who has published one good novel but is now doing the university lecture circuit as he tries to start a second one. He arrives in Paris to reunite with his estranged wife and his little girl. But due to a past transgression for which he was imprisoned (detailed in the book but not the film), his wife refuses to see him, calling the police when he knocks on her door. He sees his daughter briefly outside on the sidewalk, but since the cops are enroute, he runs and jumps on a bus. Falling asleep after his long flight, he awakes at the end of the bus line to find that his bags and wallet have been stolen.
Stumbling into a scroungy café, he meets the owner and tells him what happened. The owner agrees to rent him a room on credit, if he agrees to take a strange job. He is to sit in a room nearby for six hours every night. The room has a desk, a chair, a video screen from a security camera, and a keypad. His job is to watch the screen and, if the visitors know a certain key word, he is to buzz them in on the keypad, allowing them access to the people next door. Tom asks questions, but is just told to do the job and he will earn 50 euros a night. Not having a lot of choice, Tom takes the job. He befriends a young waitress from the café (Joanna Kulig), and more significantly, he meets Margit (Kristin Scott Thomas), the mysterious Woman in the Fifth, at a literary gathering. Is she real? Is she a male fantasy? The way she caters to him sexually, we suspect the latter. But she's not an apparition; she's flesh and blood. Right?
Tom figures on using his nightly six hours to work on his next book, but instead, he ends up writing long letters to his daughter. He tries to enlist the aid of a law firm to help him get custody, but he can't afford the legal fees. He's trapped, frustrated. Outside the law firm, he stands on the sidewalk and screams. He sneaks around to get glimpses of his daughter at the playground, where he can have short conversations with her.
Meanwhile, his relationship with young waitress turns into an affair. Not a good idea: She's his landlord's girlfriend.
There is no need to synopsize any further. Just be ready for some strange and portentous goings on. The ending surprised me. Maybe you will see it coming. I guess I'm a bit slow, but I didn't.
But aside from the plot, film connoisseurs will appreciate the way Pawlikowski uses a camera. He creates an atmosphere of unease and mystery by interspersing seemingly unrelated shots with those of Tom: Strange looking bugs crawl up the rough bark of a tree. A stoic owl stares at us. We begin to wonder about Tom's sanity.
I've often wondered how autobiographical Kennedy's novel is. Hawke even resembles him physically. He is absorbing in his film. Not that he's such a wonderful guy. We know little about him, other than the fact that he loves his child and wants to see her. And he obviously has issues with women. Still, we sympathize with him as a victim who is drawn into dark circumstances beyond his control. Hitchcockian, for sure. But maybe he's not so innocent.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
03/30/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Really, really, really rubbish
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
02/05/23
Full Review
john m
Pawlikowski's tones in his films are very nice, having seen this and "Ida." This film just never effectively focuses on any of the characters or themes it introduces though. At first, it's about the daughter, then it's about the woman in the fifth, then it's about the girl in the hotel / cafe. I'm not sure what worked here, which is a shame since a film featuring Ethan Hawke as an estranged Father or a once successful writer usually is great, and he's both in this!
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
Full Review
Joseph R
OMG this is TERRIBLE!
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
08/25/18
Full Review
Audience Member
This movie is a very slow moving movie and gets very depressing to watch. In my opinion this film works well as a dark and mysterious eourpean thriller for the first 2 acts, but collapses in a severe of unsolved dead ends in the third and final act. There is no final resolution or clarification of what has gone on or what is going on. As that being said for this being a unlikely not good film, I give "The Girl In The Fifth" a D.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
01/31/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Fundamentally, The Woman in the Fifth brings nothing new to cinema but nonetheless displays the artistic brilliance of director Pawel Pawlikowski. The film centres around Ethan Hawke as a Tom who tries to gain custody of his daughter whilst writing a novel in Paris. Pawlikowski utilises different motifs to show the inward struggles and compelling emotions the characters deal with. For some, the film can feel rather bland and the last third can feel especially slow. The Woman in the Fifth overall is an interesting film but it's nothing remarkable.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/22/23
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