Review of The Woman in the Fifth (2011) by Mister X — 18 Oct 2012

THE WOMAN IN THE FIFTH (2011) French-British-Polish independent, French/English language, English subtitles.

WRITTEN BY: Douglas Kennedy, Pawel Pawlikowski.

DIRECTED BY: Pawel Pawlikowski.

FEATURING: Ethan Hawke, Kristin Scott Thomas, Delphine Chuillot.

GENRE: Psychological Thriller, Puzzler.

RATING: 8 PINTS OF BLOOD.

PLOT: When a troubled writer meets a mysterious mentor, reality bends, leaving him in a scramble for his sanity.

COMMENTS: The Woman In The Fifth is a complex, puzzling atmosphere piece which follows a bizarre series of events that transpire during a man's visit to Paris. The story just keeps getting weirder, right up to its strange, twist ending. Carefully composed, artfully gloomy photography and symbolic segue-ways which hint at divergences, and parallel states of being, add a moody, brooding dimension to this disturbing psychological thriller.

Here's the basic setup. Freshly released from a stint in an insane asylum, professor/struggling author Tom Hicks (Hawke) lands in Paris to reunite with his estranged wife (Chuillot) and daughter. After after he breaks into his ex-wife's apartment, his spooked spouse calls the cops.

Next, Hicks is robbed on a commuter train -of everything, and finds himself flat broke in Paris' seamy underbelly, the part where the the Morrocans live. Desperate, he must make a deal with shady a flophouse proprietor (Guesmi) who sets him up with a filthy room across from a crazy neighbor who won't turn his music down or flush the toilet.

And how will Hicks pay for such lush accommodations? The proprietor has that angle figured out, too. He puts Hicks to work in a fortified control room in an underground crime warehouse. There, Hicks must lock himself in, and man a camera and remote controlled door. As a steady progression of sleazy and sinister people arrive at the subterranean entrance to be let in, bizarre bangs, scraping sounds, and screams fill the creepy corridor outside Hicks's control room. He finds that he himself is on camera. As soon as he makes a move to investigate the screams, a mysterious voice threatens him with death. Makes sense.

OK. Back to work. In his spare time, Hicks attempts to write a second novel, stalks his estranged wife and daughter, and manages to entangle himself with his mobster employer's girlfriend (Kulig ).

As if all of this isn't bizarre enough Hicks's new writing mentor Margit (Thomas), an exotic older woman regularly seduces and pampers him. But then there is a murder, followed by a disappearance. Does his new muse knows more about it than she will tell Hicks? She, and everything surrounding her becomes a conundrum. As Hicks attempts to solve it, the line between fantasy and reality undulates. When Hicks discovers his lover doesn't live at the apartment where he has been meeting her, and realizes that the apartment has been long empty, he must struggle to keep his sanity and find the answer to the riddle.

The Woman In The Fifth isn't for everybody. It's one of those movies that entertains you by raising possibilities and making you think about them. Some viewers might find the ending open-ended and ambiguous, although it really isn't. The Woman In The Fifth is a puzzler, but if you enjoy movies in this genre, such as Giuseppe Capotondi's ethereal, 2009 The Double Hour, its ending is easy to grasp. Even if it isn't you might enjoy the ambiance this film casts. It will give you a dark, haunted feeling that is a perfect match for our cloudy October days.