Movie Research: The Woman In the Window (2021)

What conventions of the genre that you chose to base your final task on does this movie have? 

The protagonist watching others through her window is both physically and emotionally isolated, which is a common theme for characters in a thriller to show vulnerability to build the audience’s sympathy. The slow suspense building up will also be in our final task, as we know we want to build anticipation rather than direct action. The use of normal settings in this movie like the protagonist’s home and street adds realism to the threat of an unknown watcher. These common conventions of the thriller genre focus on building a more realistic but slow, subtle threat. 

What conventions of the genre did the movie have that you liked and why? 

I liked the minimal dialogue in the movie that focused suspense on other elements of the film while causing unease for the audience. This would be easier to execute than adding dialogue, and it would give us more freedom in our final task to bring the audience’s attention to little details, movements, and actions that the characters do. The protagonist of the film is also unreliable as she is in a questionable mental state, which creates a sense of confusion in the back of the audience’s mind as they watch her actions. I believe this could be interesting to add to our character being watched, so the audience is left questioning throughout the sequence whether anything they see is real or not. 

What conventions of the genre did the movie have that did not appeal to you and you are thinking of not filming for your final task? 

Because the film revolves around watching, the audience is frequently placed into the protagonist’s position through POV shots and can only see her view. I feel that, instead, we could add suspense in our final task by showing scenes from both the POV of someone being watched and also someone watching. This would add a different kind of suspense where the audience knows what both characters know and is anticipating what happens because of this.