The Woman in the Window: Amy Adams stars in off-kilter psychological thriller that’s surprisingly fun

Some movies simply arrive doomed, their behind-the-scenes narratives – troubled production histories, star feuds, financial blowouts – pre-digested by pundits and passed on to a media all-too happy to perpetuate the bad press. Atonement director Joe Wright's The Woman in the Window, a new thriller starring Amy Adams as an agoraphobic New York child psychologist convinced she's witnessed a neighbour's murder, is a classic case in point: a once-hot movie that endured disastrous test screenings, disgruntled executives and multiple reshoots before landing at Netflix, where its critical reception has, perhaps predictably, been largely hostile. Her only human interaction arrives via weekly sessions with her own therapist – played by the film's screenwriter, Tracy Letts – and the occasional encounter with her basement tenant, a singer-songwriter slash handyman whose floppy acoustic hair quietly transforms to a slicked-back serial killer vibe as the plot unravels. Wright and Adams have already ramped up the off-kilter atmosphere before the action proper kicks in: the film opens with what appears to be a galaxy of stars draining into Anna's eye, while the camera's lateral tracks across the apartment take in the mental disarray of abandoned child dollhouses, dimly-lit rooms and brazen quotes from Hitchcock films glitching on TV freeze frames. Adams, whose de-glammed mousiness makes the theatrics all the more compelling, seems to get it, whether she's rocking back and forth in a chair, accusing her doubters in compositions right out of Scooby Doo, or feverishly slurping from the tap like a cat – as though her and Punch had swapped places, and she were destined to watch her downward spiral from behind feline eyes.