n 1986, The Guardian
newspaper used to run
a pre-feature advert at
cinemas called ‘Points
Of View’ – a black-and-
white film of a skinhead
seemingly about to mug
a businessman. (Google it
now, we’ll wait...) “An
event, viewed from one
point of view, gives one impression,”
intones the sonorous voiceover. “Seen
from another point of view it gives quite
a different impression; but it’s only
when you see the whole picture you can
fully understand what’s going on.” It
certainly made quite the impression on
director Joe Wright.
“I remember seeing that when I was
very young, and it really kind of blew
my mind,” he enthuses when we chat
in New York in early March. “In a way, I
think that [The Woman In The Window]
is my continued response to that kind
of questioning of our perspectives on
reality. And, in a way, Atonement was
the same thing, so it’s something that I
seem to come back to again and again.”
Atonement, based on Ian McEwan’s
book, famously centred on a little girl’s
misunderstanding powering an
accusation that irrevocably changes/
destroys lives. The Woman In The Window
(also adapted from a bestseller) explores
similar repercussions born from
misconstruction as troubled
agoraphobic New Yorker, Anna – who
fills the void left by her absent family
with meds, wine and spying on her
neighbours – seems to witness a
murder. Has she? Or is she confused?
And is the dismissal of her by the
NYPD as an unreliable shut-in really
the misinterpretation?
A hit on release in January 2018, the
page-turner written by former book
editor Dan Mallory under the
pseudonym A.J. Finn seemed ripe for
film adaptation after the success of
@hg^y@bke and Ma^@bkeHgMa^MkZbg, and
Wright was soon onboard alongside
screenwriter Tracey Letts, with Amy
Adams in the title role. Mallory visited
the set during filming in 2018 and all
appeared well – until February 2019,
when The New Yorker ran an exposé
suggesting the author had been
inconsistent in, and fabricated parts
of, his backstory for gain in a way thatSUBSCRIBEATWWWTOTALFILMCOM/SUBS
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