“The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window” is a suspense thriller starring Kristen Bell as Anna Whitaker, a very talented artist who is recovering from the traumatic experience of losing her only daughter while instinctively being drawn to sleuthing. The eight-part series is masterfully crafted for the viewer’s mind to be twisted with doubt and suspicion, sprinkling clues at every turn to keep you hooked. It is an ideal binge-watch.
Creators Rachel Ramras, Hugh Davidson, and Larry Dorf bring a unique narrative that initially makes you think you’re watching a one-woman show of chaos, but then the story gradually unfolds to create different dimensions of the human condition, consistently empathetic with both the traumas of the same and the personalities haunted by those traumas. Anna’s (portrayed by Kristen Bell) world is complex, with an unseen antagonist lurking in the shadows.
A Plot Summary: Anna’s Fear Is Not What She Believes It To Be.
Anna Whitaker is a talented artist who loses her calling to paint while boxing herself in a severe bout of ombrophobia, or fear of rain. Anna is currently separated from her husband, Douglas, who is a forensic psychiatrist at the FBI, studying criminals and trying to rehabilitate them to help them carry their lives forward. This rehabilitation helps them to embrace a new day, one day at a time.
“The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window” begins with our protagonist and lead character, Anna Whitaker, living in her past, drinking her way through the present. Dealing with depressive bouts, she finds comfort in her wine and sofa with a particular series of books. Anna’s life slowly begins to change as she delves into the life of her particularly good-looking neighbor, Neil. When Neil and Anna share their own stories of loss, they understand there could be something between them. Anna’s hopes rise within hours, only to be squashed when she runs into his girlfriend, Lisa. Lisa begins to play on Anna’s mind when she meets her ever-warm and encouraging gallerist, Sloane. Sloane tries to convince Anna that going any deeper with this couple is a bad idea, but Anna does so anyway and opens Pandora’s box by stalking Lisa on Instagram to find her cheating on Neil with another guy, Rex Bakke.
Once Anna gets acquainted with Neil and sees surreal delusions of lust in him, she gets to know his daughter Emma. Emma, in her innocence, sells her chocolates to Anna, receiving generous amounts and getting the encouragement to return. Anna believes she is building a bond in the right direction until she witnesses Lisa being stabbed in the night one day. In complete panic, she calls 911 and almost gives the wrong address. After doing so, she understands time is of the essence and runs out to help Lisa, only to grow stiff with fear in the middle of the road and collapse. After creating “unnecessary paranoia,” Detective Lane and Neil both become wary of Anna and find ways to keep her at bay. Anna keeps pushing back, trying to prove her case, and slowly she begins to go crazy. So crazy that she created a new Instagram account with the same visual language as ‘SexyRexx,’ a.k.a. Rex Bekke, trying to lure him in to confirm her suspicions of Lisa. It works, and Pandora’s box opens.
“The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window” produces enough endorphins for the viewers to keep stroking their curiosity while trying to figure out each character and how the killer is always able to get away with it while also dealing with an almost chaotic artist who tries to find meaning of each and every facet of her life.
‘The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window’ Review:
This intriguing eight-part series tenderly brings a narrative of dichotomies that masterfully narrates the story of a very complicated urban settlement of the wealthy, where every character presents as a strong case leveling the ground and balancing the overall structure of the series. With the screenplay near to perfect, it makes you pay attention to each and every detail while missing just enough to force you to revisit your memory and check if you were watching consciously enough. But that’s what you ideally want, right?
It deserves high praise because very few story-tellers are able to explain each aspect of our chaotic world. While we balance an emotional world, there is a physical world that is directly affected by it, and sometimes actions are not committed independently. It is always guided by a rooted notion of truth which is evident if we scratch the surface a little deeper. We eagerly await the next season.
“The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window” is a 2022 comedy thriller television series created by Rachel Ramras, Hugh Davidson, and Larry Dorf. Season 1 is streaming on Netflix.
