The Woman in the Fifth (2012)

80% of critics liked it
(20 reviews)
59% want to see it
(654 ratings)

An American writer moves to Paris to be closer to his daughter and finds himself falling immediately on hard times. Befriended by a French Arab who offers him a job, Tom finds himself employed as a security agent as he struggles to write his second novel and see his daughter. Meanwhile, his personal… More An American writer moves to Paris to be closer to his daughter and finds himself falling immediately on hard times. Befriended by a French Arab who offers him a job, Tom finds himself employed as a security agent as he struggles to write his second novel and see his daughter. Meanwhile, his personal life takes a turn as he becomes involved with a beguiling woman. -- (C) TIFF

Rating, Runtime: R, 1 hr. 23 min.
Directed By: Pawel Pawlikowski
Written By: Douglas Kennedy
Genres: Mystery & Suspense

In Theaters: Jun 15, 2012 Limited
Studio: ATO Pictures

Critic Reviews

Don Groves, sbs.com.au
A pretentious, muddled drama that teases and mystifies.
Graham Young, Birmingham Mail
A beautifully-crafted, intriguingly-mysterious trip into the strange workings of the human condition.
MaryAnn Johanson, Flick Filosopher
Oh, deliver us, please, from tiresome male fantasies.
Lisa Giles-Keddie, Real.com
Serves as a haunting insight into one man's struggle to rediscover himself and escape the clutches of mental illness.
Charlotte O'Sullivan, This is London
The chemistry between the actors is gorgeously unhealthy; Oedipal, spiteful and sexy.
David Gritten, Daily Telegraph
It's a rare film that leaves you wondering where it's going, how it may end - and afterwards, even questioning what actually happened. It's an intriguing enigma.
Alex Zane, Sun Online
Hawke gives a thoughtful performance - the mainly subdued Ricks displaying telling flickers of rage.
Allan Hunter, Daily Express
The end result still gives every appearance of the film having been made up as they went along.
James O'Brien, Daily Mail [UK]
Hawke is splendid in this psychological thriller with supernatural nuances.
Peter Bradshaw, Guardian [UK]
It often feels like a sort of b-side to The Tenant; it could, alternatively, have worked as one of the stories in the Three Colours trilogy.
Antonia Quirke, Financial Times
With the exception of one brilliantly uncomfortable literary party scene, the film is really just a euro-sub-pudding with psycho-thriller possibilities.
Rich Cline, Shadows on the Wall
It's a little too vague to be satisfying, but it's thoroughly haunting.
Francesca Steele, Sky Movies
There is no doubt that Pawilowkski can produce flms of great beauty. But this latest effort feels like a practice round on his way back to regular movie-making.
Matthew Turner, ViewLondon
Engaging and frustrating in equal measure, this is a haunting and frequently disturbing thriller with a superb central performance from Ethan Hawke.
Dave Calhoun, Time Out
Grief and a cruel search for companionship and belonging hang painfully over the film and work to counter some of its more frustrating loose ends and anti-climaxes.
Siobhan Synnot, Scotsman
The Woman In The Fifth is a slight piece, yet it isn't without psychological pull.
Liz Beardsworth, Empire Magazine
An ambitious thriller from Pawlikowski assisted by excellent performances from Hawke, Kulig and Scott Thomas.
Tom Dawson, Total Film
Seeks to channel the paranoid spirit of early Polanski, but contrived attempts to 'explain' the film's many mysteries ultimately disappoint.

Read all 18 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

Eric H

I'm always suspicious of a work of fiction which features a writer as it's protagonist, there's always the danger of self-aggrandizing and wish-fulfillment. Pawlikowski takes it a step further by actually casting a writer, Hawke, as his lead. This is a sort of pastiche… More
I'm always suspicious of a work of fiction which features a writer as it's protagonist, there's always the danger of self-aggrandizing and wish-fulfillment. Pawlikowski takes it a step further by actually casting a writer, Hawke, as his lead. This is a sort of pastiche of every bad piece of fiction set in Paris but written by someone who has never set foot in the place. The problem is that it's so on the nose that by the time you realise Pawlikowski is in on the joke you've already lost your patience with the cliched story. Hawke is one of my least favorite actors, a relic of the nineties like the goatee he consistently sports. Force him to deliver lines in French and his performance becomes even blander, something I hadn't thought possible. The best asset Pawlikowski has here is Scott Thomas, looking incredible for a fifty year old, but she's wasted in the role of Hawke's literal dream girl. Guesmi is charismatic but his role is little more than an Arab stereotype. The most effective part of the film is the subplot involving Hawke's night job manning the door of a creepy warehouse where suspicious types turn up in the middle of the night asking to meet with "Monsieur Monde". These scenes were genuinely tense but the subplot ultimately is left hanging and we never get a reveal of what Mr Monde was up to. On this evidence Pawlikowski may be better served making straight thrillers than trying to prove how clever he is.