The Woman in the Fifth (2011) User Reviews

An off-beat thriller delving into the crime world of reality and fantasy almost impossible to understand

[napierslogs · 5/10 · 16 August 2012]

"The Woman in the Fifth" throws us into the middle of the story. Seemingly a perfect way to start, a back-story is implied begging to be told, and future events destined to unfold to eventually come together in an interesting climax and dénouement. But the back-story never was revealed and the plot elements are indiscernible to the average eye.

Tom (Ethan Hawke) is an American writer moving to Paris. His first novel was a moderate success and he is most likely suffering from various creative blocks, probably not helped by the fact that his ex-wife has a restraining order against him, prohibiting him from seeing his daughter.

At this point, we are driven into a world of crime – not surprising for a thriller, but we don't know what crimes yet. Broke and alone, Tom makes a deal with a shady "businessman", develops an affair with a mysterious worldly woman (Kristin Scott Thomas) and then develops an affair with a sweetly mysterious waitress (Joanna Kulig).

For the few crimes that we do know were committed, it's awfully hard to understand why or by whom. The reality of the film and the imagination (or fantasy) element of the film are most likely impossible to separate. Almost all viewers have come up with different explanations, if they came up with any.

It can be interesting watching a jarring film and deduce whatever explanation you like. It can also be disappointing if you don't come up with any explanation that you like. I'm afraid I fall into the latter group.

That being said, it's nice seeing Ethan Hawke in a lead role in an indie. And speaking French no less (not perfectly, but it fits the role)! The imagery and cinematography chosen for this film were interesting and walked the thin line between thriller and horror, helped along with a slightly off-beat score. "The Woman in the Fifth" is off- beat, if it's anything at all.

What Was That All About?

[Waerdnotte · 6/10 · 6 March 2012]

Well, it depends whether you think it really matters. The film works well as a dark and mysterious European thriller for the first two acts, but collapses in a series of unresolved dead ends in the third and final act. Ethan Hawke is excellent as the shabby, messed up novelist Tom Ricks, and KST vamps it up as his imaginary lover, but she really doesn't get enough screen time. The story is an enigma, the end suggests (and I haven't read the novel) that much of what has occurred is a figment of Ricks' psychosis. We know he's probably been in prison or hospital (or both) and Hawke plays him as a man on the edge, with his rage bubbling under all the time. But what is Ricks' reality is impossible to say by the end as nothing really makes sense, as there is no real denouement to the story - there is no final resolution or clarification of what has gone on or what is going on.

An interesting Euro Thriller which ultimately does not satisfy.

A gorgeously filmed mess--compelling and almost unfinished in feeling

[secondtake · 6/10 · 21 November 2012]

The Woman in the Fifth (2011)

Well, the reason this movie gets some pretty awful reviews is the utter confusion of the plot. And yet it's a deliberate confusion--which is no excuse. It just means this isn't quite bad filmmaking, but a bad decision or two taken too far.

You see, the main character, played with ease and almost familiarity by Ethan Hawke, is mentally unstable. He seems to have two distinct realities, and these are easily confused by the viewer. And in one of these realities he does terrible things, though it isn't clear because we see those terrible things as innocently as he does (which is to say, not at all, it seems).

The character, Tom Ricks, is an American in Paris, a writer ostensibly in town to find and visit his daughter. But the mother's reaction to his showing up at their house is the first clue that something is wrong. This seemingly smart and very nice fellow scares her to call to the police. We see Ricks run to save himself from arrest but we don't quite know if he's to blame or if the mother is just overreacting.

The fact is the confusions in the movie are overwhelming. Maybe there was a better logic somewhere that an editor, under pressure from a producer or distributor, made much out of. Or maybe it was an artful decision to leave us bewildered, to spend time and emotional energy gathering the pieces and clues. The director, Pawel Pawlikowski, has something of a success or two behind him and so might have pretensions that got the better of things here.

In a way, the movie is better than it's overall impression by the end. There are numerous scenes that show a modern Paris very far removed--and much more revealing--than the glorified city seen in both mainstream French movies and American love letters like Woody Allen's recent time-travel. And the acting is overall restrained and convincing. In its bones, this is a substantial movie. Most of all, the cinematography is superb, some of the best creative stuff I've seen recently, dependent not on creative editing but on smart visual seeing--framing, kinetics, focus, and so on. I think you could watch it on many levels with great pleasure if you knew ahead of time the overall meaning and plot were going to be a mess.

Without forewarning, I'm guessing it leaves mostly frustration and bitterness.

Quietly impressive

[jamesmartin1995 · 16 August 2012]

To say that Tom is down on his luck is an understatement. He has lost his job as a university lecturer on literature and flown to Paris in search of his young daughter, Chloe, and his wife, who has had a restraining order issued against him. His bag is stolen on the bus; he has no money, and is forced to rent a grotty room in a down-and-out Parisian café, owned by a domineering, criminal character called Sezer.

Tom has also written a novel. He has no faith in it, but it clearly shows potential. His passion for literature seems to have been extinguished by the time we meet him; yet he hopes that writing a second novel will bring him some income. In the meantime, Sezer sets him up with a scary night shift in an underground bunker, where he must watch a screen for six hours each night and only allow people to enter if they know the correct 'password'.

It is at a literary gathering that Tom meets Margit. From the first moment she appears, we get goosebumps. The effect she has on Tom is electric – it might not be love at first sight, but there is something cool, mysterious and effortlessly sensual about Margit that immediately captivates him. From a simple glance through a doorway, he is compelled to follow her onto the balcony. The conversation they have there is tinged with sadness and sinister undertones; she recognises something in Tom and hands him her card, telling him to call 'any time after four', before slipping away. Who is this woman? Why does she unsettle us so much?

Ethan Hawke plays Tom. Critics have complained about his dodgy French accent, but try and put this into perspective. He is playing an outsider, a foreigner who is able to get by in conversation. Surely the American accent adds to the authenticity of the role, and emphasises his isolation. Give him a break – it's a fine performance.

Even more impressive, though, is Kristin Scott Thomas as the ethereal Margit. It is not the details of her life or the tragedy in her past that fascinates us – these are eventually revealed, but they won't be what you remember most. It is the constant performance – the cold, removed beauty of this character that startles us. Intelligent, demure and sinister, there is a potent dread and sorrow that pervades the scenes she is in, and permeates throughout the rest of the film in ripples that seem to emanate from her presence.

Consider the first time Tom visits her apartment. He is awkward, and tries to make small talk. He asks about her husband, a Hungarian writer. She indulges him for a short time, but they have no delusions. Both know very well why he is there. The shot that follows is perhaps the finest in the entire film; finally, we have found someone who understands how to film sex. It is sad to think that so many directors believe that the more you show, the more erotic the scene is. The tension in that apartment is almost unbearable, and sex does not diffuse it. Watch closely as Tom tries to kiss Margit, at what point she stops him and undoes his trousers. No detail is shown, and even the sounds of rustling material are muted. The camera focuses on their faces, in one steady, unmoving shot: Tom recoils in shock, closes his eyes, murmurs, almost disintegrating from the overwhelming emotion and physical pleasure of this act. Margit only watches, silently, smiling knowingly as if she were gazing at a small child trying to learn the alphabet. She is in complete control, and knows it.

I am not sure how to describe 'The Woman In The Fifth'; the word 'strange' doesn't even scratch the surface. It is a classy movie – the aesthetics and cinematography are top notch (notice the deep reds and blacks that cling to Margit, for example), and the influence of Polish cinema is patent. Paris is an alien world – behind a romantic façade lie the gray skies, the lonely train tracks, the tragic aura of mystery and always the looming sense of danger and death. This is a movie that defies rational judgement, as the plot swings from one bizarre event to the next. The twist about two thirds of the way through had many cynics in the audience scoffing – I have to admit, I wasn't completely convinced. But we are in the hands of a director who has complete confidence in his medium, and by the end, I had a deep respect for his efforts. This movie isn't perfect, but it is nevertheless beguiling and utterly compelling. It takes some skill to blend the genres seen here so effortlessly – from domestic drama to romance to crime thriller and finally entering the realms of the supernatural, this shouldn't really work. Yet the threads between these genres and the themes on display are as tangible as those woven by spiders and serving to capture insects in the brief interludes within the film, often showing snapshots of nature in its deformed, frightening beauty, focusing in particular on a faraway woodland. Where is it? What do these images mean?

It only really struck me as I left the cinema just how desperately sad this movie is. Whatever else 'The Woman In The Fifth' explores, it is primarily about suffering and loss, and our need for love and human companionship. It may not be a masterpiece – I would argue its flaws are quite substantial - but it is never pretentious. Pawel Pawlikowski is a director who has a story to tell, and does so with flair and imagination, without ever alienating his audience. Surprisingly deep, concisely expressed and including within its short running time glimpses of cinematic genius, 'The Woman In The Fifth' is an unassuming little gem. I highly recommend it.

Forget any Explanation and Simply Enjoy (or not)

[claudio_carvalho · 5/10 · 3 January 2013]

The American professor of literature and novelist Tom Hicks (Ethan Hawke) travels to Paris to see his beloved daughter Chloé (Julie Papillon) that lives with her mother Nathalie (Delphine Chuillot). However, Nathalie uses the restraining order to call the police and avoid letting Tom to meet Chloé.

Tom flees from the police and takes a bus but he is tired and sleeps. When he awakes in a poor neighborhood, he finds that his luggage and money were robbed. He goes to a bar and the Polish waitress Ania (Joanna Kulig) brings a coffee for him. He asks for a room and explains that he had been robbed and she asks him to talk with the owner Sezer (Samir Guesmi) that allows him to stay in a very low budget room and pay him later. Then Sezer offers a job of night watchman in a suspect building.

One day, Tom goes to a bookstore and is invited to a party with writers where he meets Margit Kadar (Kristin Scott Thomas), who is a translator and widow of a Hungarian writer. She gives her address and telephone to Tom. Soon Tom has a love affair with Margit at her apartment and with Ania on the roof of the bar. But Tom is also obsessed by his daughter, snooping around Chloé during the days. When his next door neighbor at the hotel that is blackmailing Tom is found dead, his only alibi is Margit. But when the police officers go to her place, they discover that she had committed suicide many years ago.

"La femme du Vème" is one of those movies like "Triangle" where there is no explanation for bizarre and surrealistic situations. I am not sure whether the director Pawel Pawlikowski had this intention or not, but forget any explanation about the plot and simply enjoy (or not) the movie.

David Lynch is the master of this style while Claude Chabrol was the French master of thrillers with open endings to make the viewer think and discuss possibilities. But this is the practically unknown Pawel Pawlikowski and I was disappointed with the lack of conclusion of the good plot. But as an unconditional fan of Kristin Scott Thomas and Ethan Hawke, I do not regret this strange experience. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Estranha Obsessão" ("Weird Obsession")

Clever and imaginative

[ken_bethell · 7/10 · 28 May 2012]

A Polish director and an enigmatic movie - no surprise there then! What does surprise me is the relatively low rating that viewers have awarded, presumably because they didn't understand or attempt to understand the symbolisms. Any movie that makes you sit and think - even if your initial reaction is unfavourable - deserves a higher mark especially when you consider the unimaginative dross continually being served up by Hollywood.Ethan Hawke is very good as the confused and dishevelled writer coming to terms with life in Paris after being institutionalised and becoming estranged from his family. What had he done? With hindsight it is possible to interpret the events that follow as chapters in his mind that happen immediately after his incarceration. He is in fact never released. His wife's hostility and the loss of his luggage - a pretty obvious metaphor - represent the breaking of ties with his former life. The shabby hotel, hostile neighbour and a daily routine of watching people entering a secure area are all symbolic of life in a mental institution which he observes while attempting to write letters to his daughter that she will never receive. His daughter found wandering in a park alludes to his initial breakdown. Kristin Scott Thomas, as alluring as ever, plays one of his two sexual fantasies conjured up from his literary past. Exotic, desirable and willing she seduces him into leaving his miserable life and joining her forever: an undoubted euphemism for suicide. At least the blinding white light that followed was unmistakable. Well that's my take. You may have a different explanation altogether but it surely emphasises my initial assertion that any film that can make you think is a good film no matter what the subject matter.

Taking The Fifth

[writers_reign · 5/10 · 21 February 2012]

This is the kind of movie that the Producers clearly hope you will return to a second or even a third time in order to try to figure out what the hell is going on. There are those who will be reminded of Buffet Froid and/or Comedy Of Innocence though compared to this entry both of those were clarity itself. As always Kristin Scott-Thomas is a major selling point and though it has to be said that she doesn't disappoint neither does she do much to clarify matters, least of all, does she actually exist or is she a figment of the protagonist's - who is, after all, a writer - imagination. Paris is rendered as downbeat as possible in grays and blues and the nightmare, Kafkaesque setting serves the film well. Not for everyone.

A Labyrinth of Question of Fantasy and Reality

[gradyharp · 7/10 · 17 June 2012]

Douglas Kennedy's perplexing novel THE WOMAN IN THE FIFTH has been further contorted by writer/director Pawel Pawlikowski for the film of the same name (aka La femme du Vème). If the viewer has read the novel then the confusion of the story will not be as surprising as it is to the novice viewer. In many ways this is a brilliant cinematic exploration of the fragility of the human mind, how events of the past can influence the manner in which we attempt to reconstruct a viable present. But in other ways this is a film that refuses to tell a story that is logical and will leave many viewers with some serious head scratching by movie's end.

Academic professor of literature and writer Tom Hicks (Ethan Hawke) seems to be fleeing America in the wake of a scandal simply because he wants to see his six-year-old daughter Chloé (Julie Papillon): Tom's estranged wife Nathalie (Delphine Chuillot) refuses to let Tom see his daughter, has a restraining order in place and seems fearful of Tom's character (it is suggested that Tom may have been in prison for the past six years). The police are called and Tom escapes onto a bus, falls asleep and s awakened at the end of the line having been robbed of this luggage and money. He is in the sleazy part of Paris inhabited by North Africans and Moroccans and finds a degree of solace in a tiny café, the beautiful Polish waitress Ania (Joanna Kulig) offers him coffee and introduces him to the owner, Sezer (Samir Guesmi) who allows him to room in the filthy place, an offer that is accompanied by a 'job' where he will be a night watchman in a warehouse visited by shadowy figures who must give a code for Tom to allow entry. Tom uses his night jobsite to write lengthy letters to Chloé and spends his days spying on her at her school. At a bookstore he meets a fellow American who invites him to an evening reception for writers and there he encounters the very strange Margit (Kristin Scott Thomas), a bewitching but enigmatic widow of a Hungarian writer who is obviously attracted to Tom and sets meeting times and places for them to engage in a tryst (in the Fifth Arrondissement). Tom and Margit begin a tempestuous physical affair but at the same time Tom and Ania have an equally passionate affair and there is always in the background Tom's obsession to reunite with his daughter. But the story implodes with a murder, a disappearance, and a very strange change in the veracity of Margit's existence. It is at this point that the film becomes purposefully deranged and bizarre and the audience is left with merely some ideas and clues as to what has really happened. How are these incongruous events to make sense? Can they make sense? Is Tom succumbing to the same fever that kept him sheltered for many days upon his arrival in beautiful Paris? Has time somehow passed him by or is he living in an even grander deceit than he first thought?

The film is basically in French with English subtitles. Ethan Hawke struggle with the French but that is credible for a 'just arrived' American. Kristin Scott Thomas offers her usual excellent skills as the strange Margit and the remainder of the cast do well with what little dialogue they are given. The dank atmospheric cinematography is by Ryszard Lenczewski and the correctly strange musical score (from an aria form a Handel opera sung by a countertenor to piano music excerpts form the Romantic era) is the work of Max de Wardener. Pawel Pawlikowski's moody, menacing, downbeat film takes something from the director's Polish compatriots Polanski and Kieslowski. It is offbeat but for those who appreciate experimental cinema this is well worth your time.

Grady Harp

A Nutshell Review: The Woman in the Fifth

[DICK STEEL · 1/10 · 8 September 2012]

There are films that pretend to be high art, and The Woman in the Fifth is clearly one of them. It insults your intelligence with its twists, because if a film were to suggest everything had happened in the protagonist's mind, then surely, why bother with this story when you can imagine everything yourself just by looking at the poster and watching the trailer. And surprisingly this is based on a novel written by Douglas Kennedy, so there should be a story at least, unless something went wrong with director Pawel Pawlikowski's adaptation of the screenplay.

A French-British-Polish production, the film boasts the likes of Ethan Hawke and Kristin Scott Thomas, the latter being the titular woman, a widow of a not-so-well read Polish writer. But she appears only about halfway through the film, and we're left to follow Hawke's Tom Ricks, an American English literature professor and writer of only one book, who had journeyed to Paris indefinitely so that he can stalk his estranged wife, and kid. That's because he has a restraining order, and has to keep a distance. He loses all his possessions, and ends up in a motel-bar, where the goodwill of the owner Sezer (Samir Guesmi) meant he could live on credit for the time being.

One hour is spent together with Tom in getting into a routine. He mopes around trying to write, gets frustrated with his neighbour who has bad shared toilet manners, Sezer gets him a job which is a night guard equivalent of sitting in a windowless room screening people entering some premises that is never revealed to be what it is, and in between, he gets to physically romance Scott Thomas' Margit Kardar, who sets certain rules and conditions when and where they can get jiggy with it, and interchanges his muse to Sezer's squeeze Ania (Joanna Kulig) because she's obviously more nubile, and more impressed with his writing credentials than Margit.

But it is this routine that does the film in, because it doesn't bother to lead the story anywhere. If Pawlikowski's objective is to bore, or put something existential onto film, then he succeeded, complete with dreary lines where Margit tells Tom the latter has to experience tragedy in order to write that next big novel. Right, so a translator for her dead husband's literary works suddenly becomes life's guru to a writer, and dispenses plenty of knowledge nuggets to her lover when he visits her periodically for one sole objective.

It's one thing being open ended so as to make the audience work for the pay load, but another if things are kept open ended as a cheat because of the emptiness of the film, leaving it to the audience to guess in any fashion, without clear parameters drawn up because the filmmakers are clueless as to where they want the film to go. No amount of beautiful cinematography can cover up the lack of clarity, and to sugar coat the flimsiness, and silliness of the film, is but a futile effort. While Kristin Scott Thomas and Ethan Hawke put in good performances, ultimately they are done in by their lines, and probably had an exercise on how to brood effectively for the screen.

The twist could have been done in creepy fashion, since it blows open the possibilities just when things were turning rote and stale past the hour mark, but nothing was done to exploit this sudden window of hope. When it happened, it provided a temporary lift, but ultimately did itself in again by going for things that are inexplicable both logically and emotionally, and as mentioned, if everything can be imagined, then why the need to watch this in the very first place? Save your money for something else more worthwhile, as this stinker sinks to the bottom of the pile, not worth another mention unless to list down the worst of the year.

An Exercise in the Craft of Madness

[Chris_Pandolfi · 7/10 · 15 June 2012]

"The Woman in the Fifth," adapted from the novel by Douglas Kennedy, tells the story of an author whose crumbling personal life is second only to the decaying state of his mind. Although it has a definite sequence of events, I hesitate to say that it has a plot. The intention, so far as I could tell, was to toy with the audience's perception of reality, to intentionally raise questions without answering them. Writer/director Pawel Pawlikowski seems to operate under the assumption that a certain degree of madness goes hand in hand with the writing process. To an extent, he's probably right; it takes a special kind of person to not only conceive of fictitious people, places, and plots but to also obsess over them until the story has naturally resolved itself. The real downside is that this usually comes at the expense of a personal life.

Tom Ricks (Ethan Hawke), an American literature professor with one published novel to his name, travels to Paris, desperate to reunite with his six-year-old daughter, Chloe (Julie Papillion). His estranged wife, Nathalie (Delphine Chuillot), clearly does not want him in Chloe's life; the details are not made explicitly clear, although we do know that she has already filed a restraining order against him, and it's strongly suggested that he has spent time in prison. Fleeing from Nathalie's apartment after she calls the police, he boards a bus, falls asleep, and awakens to find that his bag has been stolen. He's now lost in a city he's completely unfamiliar with. The best he has going for him is that he can speak French. He takes refuge in a seedy hostel on the outskirts of town.

Because he doesn't have the money to pay for a room, he's forced to work as a night guard in a warehouse owned by Sezer (Samir Guesmin), who can never say anything without sounding sinister. The job is simple enough; all Tom has to do is buzz people in. Granted, they must speak in code if they're to be granted access, and it certainly is odd that they look rather shady and pop by at all hours of the night. Then there's the fact that neither Tom nor the audience has any idea what, if anything, they do behind the closed door of the neighboring cell. We are made aware that, every time a group of men enter the room, the light bulbs in the lamp on Tom's desk flicker. And then there's the moment Tom puts his ear against the wall in an attempt to eavesdrop; someone immediately bangs on the wall and warns Tom that, if he continues to listen in, he will be killed.

As he feverishly handwrites letters to Chloe, all of which detail a magical forest located somewhere in Virginia, two women enter Tom's life. One is Ania (Joanna Kulig), a Polish waitress in Sezer's café who has a healthy interest in poetry. Her attraction to him is not adequately explained, although, given the love and affection he so desperately craves, it's easy to understand his attraction to her. The other woman is the mysterious Margit (Kristin Scott Thomas), the well- travelled translator of her late husband's Hungarian novels. She and Tom met at an upscale literary gathering hosted by an English-speaking bookshop owner. Obviously aware of his attraction to her, she gives Tom a card with her name and address on it. She makes it clear that, if they are to meet, it can only be on her terms.

And so it comes to pass that he finds himself at Paris' Fifth Arrondissment, entering her apartment and immediately dropping his defenses against her bold, borderline oedipal sexual advances. Tom's attraction to her only deepens as entices him into abandoning everyone and everything he knows. This would include not only Ania, with whom Tom has also begun an affair, but also his wife and daughter. Not long after this has been being established, the plot takes a drastic turn with the inclusion of a sudden murder and an unexplainable disappearance, both of which have direct connections to Tom. Is it possible that Margit isn't quite what she seems, given the fact that she never disclosed the details of her husband's death? And what can Tom – or we, for that matter – make of an unexpected and illogical revelation about Margit?

Having provided you with a plot description, having enticed with vague hints and strategically worded questions, I'm wondering why I bothered. "The Woman in the Fifth" is not intent on explaining itself; it's a psychological thriller told from an unreliable perspective, so in essence, it's really less of a film and more of an exercise in atmosphere and craft. There is something to be said for that. An enigmatic narrative is far more likely to stimulate the imagination and generate topics of conversation than a traditional detective story, which typically rely on both an explanation and an emotional climax. Having said that, there's a very fine line between an enigma and an underdeveloped screenplay, and at times, this movie comes dangerously close to crossing it. Still, it's an engrossing film – technically competent, structurally magnetic, and wonderfully cast.

-- Chris Pandolfi (www.atatheaternearyou.net)

Locked Up In A Cuckoo's Nest

[tigerfish50 · 5/10 · 12 January 2013]

An American novelist arrives in Paris, hoping to reunite with his French wife and young daughter after being released from an institution, but his pleas for reconciliation are bluntly rejected. Shortly after this setback, his money and belongings are stolen, and he rents a room at a fleabag hotel owned by a sinister Lebanese. As his life spirals downwards, he quarrels with a foul-mouthed African over the filth in their shared toilet, obsessively stalks his daughter's school playground during the day, and survives by working as a night watchman in an underground labyrinth. Invited to a literary party, he begins an affair with the mysterious widow of an author, while also becoming intimate with the barmaid girlfriend of the hotel proprietor.

Countless camera shots through railings and windows provide sledgehammer clues that the novelist's Parisian ordeal is the delusion of a deranged patient confined in some asylum, and his surreal misadventures represent fantasies intermingled with memories. The real identities of the other characters are fairly obvious - the hotel owner is the asylum governor - the African a fellow patient - the barmaid a nurse who dispenses medications. The two mistresses are archetypes of good and evil - one a vampiric, dark-haired sophisticate, while the other is a blonde Polish country girl. It's anyone's guess who they might represent. Those who admire this downbeat clone of Mulholland Drive can unravel the puzzle.

The woman in the mind

[tomsview · 8/10 · 7 March 2014]

If you enjoy a movie with loads of atmosphere that leads you deeper and deeper into a complex mystery, and then refuses to give easy answers, then you will love "The Woman in the Fifth" - I know I do.

An American writer, Tom Ricks (Ethan Hawke), arrives in Paris to try to meet with his daughter. His ex-wife immediately calls the police and we realise that there has been some ugly history between them.

Broke, Tom is given a room in a seedy hostel in exchange for taking a job as a nightwatchman in the basement of a strange building. At a literary gathering he meets Margit Kadar (Kristen Scott Thomas). Margit lives in the fifth arrondissement - the woman in the fifth - and they have an affair. His life starts to take unexpected turns. At the hotel, he also has an affair with a young Polish waitress, and a confrontation with the aggressive man in the next room. All the while, trying various ways to see his daughter.

By the end of the film there has been a murder, a kidnapping, and revelations about Margit Kadar that reveal that all is not right with Tom Ricks. Not much is explained at the end - the last scene leaves us wondering.

Movies that blur the line between what is real and what is being imagined have been around for a while now. Back in the days of Film Noir it usually turned out that it was all just a dream - a not too satisfying resolution that quickly became trite. However, over the last couple of decades, movies that blur the line have become much trickier.

The process in more recent times may have started with movies that are not exactly ghost stories, but feature people who don't know they are dead. A forerunner was "Carnival of Souls" in 1962, but Haley Joel Osment in "The Sixth Sense" wasn't the only one to see dead people, they popped up in "Jacob's Ladder", "The Others", "Passengers", and "November" to name a few.

Then there are the split personalities - the cinematic interpretation of schizophrenia. David Lynch's films, "Lost Highway" and "Mulholland Dr." come to mind. Then there is "Fever", "A Beautiful Mind", and the recent "I, Anna" as well as "Trance", which have explored this phenomenon. "The Woman in the Fifth" belongs with this group.

Although that tricky shift between the real and the imaginary has probably been seen a few times too often now, "the Woman in the Fifth" does it well. This intriguing film has an affecting central story, a fascinating location and compelling performances all round.

Not concrete

[shuawilmot · 6/10 · 6 February 2019]

Watch this with a group and have a great discussion on questions like: What happened in that movie? What was that about? How much of the content was symbolic and how much of it was actually concrete?

Or watch it alone and become miserably confused.

Lots of talent, but doesn't come together

[gbill-74877 · 5/10 · 7 March 2022]

Despite the promise of a collaboration between Pawel Pawlikowski, Ethan Hawke, Joanna Kulig, and Kristin Scott Thomas set in Paris, this film fizzles into a frustrating, rather dreary mess. In a nutshell, an American writer (Hawke) shows up at his ex-wife's apartment, hoping to see their daughter. She calls the police on him and he flees, and after being robbed on a train, he ends up in a seedy hotel. He takes a shady job to pay for his room, and gets involved with a couple of women, one of whom was the muse for a Hungarian author (Scott Thomas), and another who works at the hotel (Kulig). Things go south when a man trying to blackmail him turns up dead, and the muse (who is also his alibi for the evening in question) turns out to be imaginary.

The meaning to the film is probably along the lines of an artist struggling with his own sanity, and having to make difficult choices between creative output and family, all while living in impoverished conditions. He tries to write beautiful, touching work but he's doing so in the dingiest of places, the struggle of which has been felt by a large number of artists since time began. While Kulig and Scott Thomas felt rather wasted in their parts, Hawke shows his range here and has several fine moments, which were the highlights of the film.

Where it falls down is in the narrative, which is too vague and open-ended. I disliked the muse reveal, and thought the murder was an odd bit of drama, things that sent the story over the rails for me. I wondered about what had led to the restraining order which was alluded to early on, and wished that the film had focused more on the dynamic with his ex-wife and child, as opposed to the other women in Paris. How much of this is in the imagination of the author is subject to interpretation and that's kind of interesting, but ultimately it just doesn't come together.

What?

[TokyoGyaru · 2/10 · 13 May 2021]

I really like Ethan Hawke as an actor. I don't even know why I do. He wasn't really on my radar until Sinister, and I've worked my way back from there. But as much as I enjoy him acting (if not his films themselves aside from Sinister and Daybreakers), even that can't make me say this was a good film, and as much as I enjoy abstraction and expression, there are some things I'm left not understanding, but the film is unfortunately too boring and underwhelming to have warranted a thousand think pieces by film essayists, so I'm left scrunching my face somewhat.

I enjoyed Ethan, at least, but I'd never recommend this or watch this again. It's not fascinatingly vague and open to interpretation; it's just vague. It's clearly a movie pretending to be something it's not. I was sitting here thinking a fascinating story would have been about his same situation (sans the family I couldn't care less about) but focusing on his "job" in the locked room. There were many mysteries and thrills they could have made out of it instead of the pretentious, half-baked, poorly paced, dull "story" we actually got. (Also, the characterization of the immigrant characters is suspect.)

Moments of brilliance in another Paris

[johnklem · 7/10 · 29 June 2012]

A phenomenally ambitious, mostly successful film that (almost) atones for the cardinal sin that was Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris. It says so much about cinema audiences that Midnight in Paris was so popular. Here's a film that is startlingly beautiful, utterly intriguing and perfectly cast, and with a drop dead gorgeous soundtrack. The result? A lot of very angry people because... it didn't make sense. No-one mentions that the "Midnight" script had holes you could drive a truck through, because they had a good time. Wake up, people! You're getting the cinema you deserve and it ain't pretty. Or maybe it is. How about Mark Wahlberg and a teddy bear? There you go. That works. Don't blame Hollywood (where I live and work). You're voting with your wallets. Films like The Woman in the Fifth that need intellectual and emotional input from its audience are being stoned to death. The world's becoming a Disney theme park and you're all accessories after the fact. If you think that the word "consumer" is an insult, there's still hope. Take a moment. Watch this film. It isn't perfect. The balance between physical and metaphysical is off and therein lies the confusion. Kieslowski (another obvious comparison) would have handled it better but he wasn't hampered by a literary source when he made La Double Vie. But... it's fKKKing gorgeous. Difficult, challenging, flawed? Yes, but I'll take it over the processed pap that is the American mainstream anytime.

What the....?!?

[rightwingisevil · 9 April 2012]

this is a very very weird movie with Ethan hawk and his magnifying eyeglasses. guess through his eye ware like what he told his little daughter: "don't do it, your eyes are as perfect as mine." maybe, i say maybe, that this guy's eyes or his eye ware could really enable him to see the dead and revive her from ashes and turned her into warm, lustful flesh, a ghost who could wash his hair and made love to him 'any time after 4:00pm", any time he felt lonely he could visit her, rang the bell on the front, went up the staircase, rang the door bell again, then when she opened it, he could walk in, embraced her with a long passionate kiss, then went to the bed.

in this weird film, Paris never made you feel lovely but senselessly cold, hopeless and helpless. those streets with cobble stones only echoed the walking dead, the losers, the daily struggling lower level Parisians, those naturalized citizens from Morocco, north Africa or where else they could sneak in and mess up the whole social structure of France. a pathetic American one-book writer with a vague past relationship to a pure french woman, then weird but also vague things happened, he left and back to America, then after 6 years separation, he came back trying to picking up the loss years of his growing up young daughter....blab, blab, and blab. fell asleep on the bus, all the luggage were stolen except his passport. so far, the screenplay still felt quite normal, then his journey to Paris became weirder and weirder, finally, a normal nostalgic odyssey gradually turned into a super nature goof ball, so goofy that a drama suddenly became a goddamn mess.

i definitely believe that the screenplay writer(s?), the director and the editor were exactly playing a practical joke on we stupid clueless audiences. they produced an actually not bad but serious enough decent film, but then at some point, they decided to turn a serious movie into a practical joke, and they were laughing their pants off when critics and viewers came out of the cinema with puzzled and troubled expressions, everybody's face with only one word: "WTF?!" on their faces. while these french goof-balls couldn't stop their guffaws, we viewers just heard they said behind our back: "Ce qu'il vous faut, ha ha! (Got you, ha ha!!)

Boring and pointless

[zipirovich · 1/10 · 13 July 2013]

I regret wasting my time on watching this pretense of a movie. It's so slow, extremely boring, and absolutely pointless. It's starts out as something that could be interestingly developed, but that doesn't happen. A typical example of a movie that could've been, but alas it wasn't. Various subplots in the end either get lost or are left unexplained and underdeveloped. Watching absent-minded Ethan Hawke in a coat for 80 minutes -- that's pretty much this movie is. Granted that the two female leads (Kristen Scott Thomas and Joanna Kulig) looked good and acted well, but that's not enough. Especially in the case of Kristen Scott Thomas's character -- I mean seriously, what the heck was that about?

"....If you have read the book, then by watching the film, you will be...."

[gwest-07331 · 6/10 · 20 March 2021]

If you have read the book, then by watching the film, you will be very disappointed because there is one great change in the plot location that will affect and ruin the whole tone of the story:

Yes; both versions are set in Paris: hence the title 'The Woman in the Fifth.'

In the book, the estranged wife and daughter have been left behind in America as 'Tom' flees to Paris alone to avoid a scandal of his own making. This is not so in the film.....Tom arrives in Paris to re-unite his family from estrangement . Furthermore, there are also a great number of plot details missing from a fascinating story from the author Douglas Kennedy... it is like a big gap of a hole that the film can only seem to portray and make sense of.... by compressing the whole story into an 80 minute narrative with occult like interpretations with director's own fancy?

Furthermore, the lengthy plot of the book is vital to hold the story together. I am also not keen on Ethan Hawke who plays Tom ( whose name is 'Harry' in the original story. ) Ethan Hawke, as an actor, looks too introspective and miserable for the character to be liked. I do however, like Kristin Scott Thomas - she is irresistible, and perfectly cast as the mysterious Margit of which the the mystery is based upon.

Having compared the film to the book though, there is great merit to savour - with great artistry of film -making -it is art-house filming -and remarkable in quality. Overall, the film appears dreamy, but drab, and ends abruptly without the full story being told, leaving one feeling sad, confused, and a bit short changed...and it does not help that the filming of the 'imaginary of the woodland' can offer a clue to the 'owl like' magic to solve the mystery?

Again, while the film has merit on its own strength- it would have been a real plot spoiler to have see the film prior to reading the book -to have known the mystery of Margit, to whom: The Woman of the Fifth is so named. I am glad I did not attend the Curzon cinema in Mayfair, London to do just this, as the book is great to read: Of course, I feel sad and confused -having now watched the film....but I wish that the film director, Pawel Pawlikowski could explain his interpretation?

As much a let-down as the original Douglas Kennedy incredible/incredulous opus ... !?

[Elisabetha49 · 2/10 · 23 January 2012]

Bad luck ... I happened to purchase - on a whim - the original "arrow" paperback novel a sheer week prior to finding out that the motion-picture adaptation was being shown nearby, with tentative acting by no less than Etan Hawke and (!) Kristin Scott Thomas ...; all the more than tantalizing ...; Having read through Kennedy's incredible/unbelievable story, I was more than curious how -the heck- both script-writer and Director would/had rendered , or came-out of this lame ending tale ?! Lo and behold, it's even worse than I had expected ...: gloomy, pessimistic, unhinged -since some/most characters' interaction(s) are left out- with Ricks and Margit factual plain physical relationship wholly left out ... being compensated by an 'end-of-second World War' Parisian feel and atmosphere ... ?! Neither are these credits any justification for leaving-out some of the original script justification &/or relating's ...; The whole experience become/come-out as an WIDE AWAKE NIGHTMARE of unrealistic happenings ...; P.S.: credited appraisals by 'Mail on Sunday' and 'The Times' literary critics must have been disclaimers ...

What We Perceive Is What Is

[LeonLouisRicci · 7/10 · 30 August 2013]

A Haunting Enigma of a Film where there are no easy answers, but they are there if you look and listen closely, that is filled with Ugly and Beautiful images suggesting a Schizophrenic impression of Life. Illustrating that, in effect, perception and point of view is all in the Mind.

This is Creepy and Complex and is not an easy decipher, like Psychoanalysis it may take some time to penetrate its Secrets and uncover the Pathology. It is intriguing, but not always Fun discovering the ambiguous layers in this Movie with its decidedly Euro feeling. Through the glasses darkly.

It is Cerebral Cinema for those wanting that sort of thing. Upon reflection it is much more than the initial Viewing would suggest and would seem to invite a second look. Obviously not for everyone, but those willing to take chances and explore the wide range of Experiences that Movies have to offer, this is a good one. Ethan Hawke shows some disciplined range and the Foreign Director may pick up a few American admirers with this Artistic Vision.

Complete and utter waste of time!

[ICanNeverThinkOfAGoodUsername · 1/10 · 21 September 2014]

I thought the last 5 minutes would sum up everything I saw. I was wrong. The ending is... I wouldn't even call it an ending. You're left wondering what actually happened in the film and what the explanation is. Even if you like interpreting things yourself - this film is very vague. You could say there were a lot of random events that happened but nothing came of them.

For example the main character had a dodgy job - that's it. That's all I can tell you about it. Nothing ever came of it. Then the storyline moved onto something else which was never explained.

I've seen a lot of rubbish films with rubbish endings but this film is completely ridiculous. I genuinely mean that. The film doesn't explain anything at all. In other rubbish films I've seen you get some sort of rubbish explanation... In this film there is no explanation what so ever.

I definitely would not recommend this film at all.

SPOILERS AHEAD: 1. Was the guy mentally ill or not?

2. Was the woman dead or not?

3. Why would he tell the supposed dead woman that he slept with someone else when he was also sleeping with her? Surely she'd mind...

4. Why would he accept a dodgy job?

5. Why did we always get scenes of him in the woods? It was something he dreamed of in his book, but why show it in the film? What is the significance?

Pawel Pawlikowski populates a lonely Paris with an unreliable narrator and a fascinating international cast

[chaz-28 · 8/10 · 4 November 2011]

Tom Ricks (Ethan Hawke) tells the immigration officer at the airport that he has come to Paris to live, write a novel, and take care of his daughter Chloe while his ex-wife works during the day. He probably believes these words as he says them out loud; however, the audience quickly learns Tom is not welcomed by his ex-wife and six year old Chloe thought daddy was in prison. We never learn exactly where Tom came from but it is most likely somewhere unpleasant. Through a combination of errors, Tom manages to have his luggage stolen, the police are after him for violating a restraining order, and he winds up at a seedy café/hotel conveniently located at the last stop on the bus line, never a good neighborhood. Tom Ricks has hit bottom.

The title The Woman in the Fifth refers to Margit Kadara (Kristin Scott Thomas). While failing spectacularly at small talk at and upscale function for writers and their elite admirers, Tom has one of those moments where Margit is the only person in the room he sees, even though there are 50 some people in the room. They strike up a conversation where she learns he is a novelist, has had one book published which was moderately successful, but is now obviously baffled on if there will be a second book. Tom learns Margit has lived everywhere, speaks six or seven languages fluently, was a muse and translator for her late Hungarian husband, and now seems poised to volunteer to become Tom's muse.

Tom falls into a job which could only be invented by a novelist. The Woman in the Fifth is adapted from the eponymous 2007 novel by Douglas Kennedy which puts Tom in a job where he is confined to a bare room for six hours every night to watch a video screen. When men appear at the door, they will say a prepared phrase, and if they say the correct phrase, Tom is to press the buzzer to open a door down the hall. He does not know who these men are, why they are coming to the door, or who they are meeting behind that door. What Tom discovers is that behind that door comes some yelling, occasional screaming, and the power fluctuates sometimes during that screaming. This is the perfect job for a novelist who can write uninterrupted for six hours a night and the perfect mysterious predicament for a novelist to place his protagonist in.

Two other characters straight out of a novel populate Tom's hotel. There is the bar maid (Joanna Kulig) who takes an interest in Tom and there is his next door neighbor, Omar, who never flushes their shared toilet and takes an extra special dislike to Tom when he finds out he is American. As Tom sleepily shuffles around Paris to visit Margit, keep tabs on his ex-wife and daughter, and spend his six hours a night behind a locked door with a buzzer, it is refreshing to see him fall back to the hotel and develop a sweet rapport with the bar maid.

The movie is mysterious, languid and seems to be setting the audience up for something. What that 'something' is I will not say and you will hopefully not learn before you see the film. Paris seems empty and lonely and after awhile I just wanted Tom to take a nap because as time progresses, he looks dead tired and unaware of his surroundings. Pawel Pawlikowski (My Summer of Love, Last Resort), the director and screenplay adaptor, allows time to flow by and rarely defines it. The audience loses track of how many days Tom has been in Paris or if it becomes tomorrow or the day after.

Ethan Hawke does a very good job of keeping the audience on edge about Tom. He is frequently quiet and contemplative as he melts into a café booth but every now and then there are loud outbursts when a bit of news or a situation displeases him. I have seen variations of Kristin Scott Thomas as Margit before. She is confident, knows how to relax her company, and easily handles Tom when he is falling apart; she knows exactly how to put him back together. Joanna Kulig as the bar maid is a wonderful new presence on screen. She is obviously native Polish like the director, but must converse in two other languages (English and French) along with the rest of the cast. The script shows a narrative strength as I did not realize very often as it seamlessly slipped from French to English and back again.

After the screening, I overheard a lot of people asking their friends to explain what happened and either agreeing with them in 'aha' moments or shaking their heads in disbelief. The Woman in the Fifth will most likely polarize the audience between those who are familiar with films such as these and those that are unfamiliar with being blindsided and bewildered. I recommend The Woman in the Fifth for both types of audience members. For the indoctrinated, you will appreciate a shadowy script with a fascinating unreliable narrator. For the untested viewer, go and enjoy an intriguing international cast and get your questions ready at the end.

I EXIST AS MUCH AS YOU EXIST

[nogodnomasters · 6/10 · 22 June 2019]

Tom Ricks (Ethan Hawke) is an American novelist who goes to Paris in hopes of patching up his relationship with his ex-wife (Delphine Chuillot) and daughter (Julie Papillon). She wants nothing to do with him because of some event in their past, which is not fully explained. Through a series of bad luck he ends up working for a man named Sezer (Samir Guesmi) as a night time doorman, a job steeped with symbolism as he works on his second novel.

Meanwhile, Tom meets a mysterious older woman (Kristin Scott Thomas) who has taken a shine to him. She is the "Woman in the Fifth." He begins an affair with her about the same time he takes up with Sezer's girlfriend, his "Polish muse" (Joanna Kulig). We don't know how weird things really are until near the end of the tale.

If I told you I understood everything in this film, I would be lying. There is symbolism in his forest writing, the bugs, and the light which dims and goes bright, none of which I fully understood. Then there is the weird aspect of the movie which turns this into an existential film, something I didn't fully comprehend. I didn't think it was worth watching a second time through in an attempt to make heads or tails out of the film.

This is an artsy film. It is in part in English and French with subtitles, and Polish with no subtitles. The action moves slow as it concentrates on the character of Tom Ricks. I am looking for a good plot spoiler review to tell me what I just watched.

Parental Guide: F-bomb (in French, spelled correctly for us in English), sex, no nudity.

A VERY Poor Film !!!

[JoeKulik · 1/10 · 17 August 2015]

Pawel Pawlikowski's Woman In The Fifth (2011) is just a VERY POOR film, in my opinion.

The character of Tom Ricks is ill conceived and quite frankly pathetic. Tom, overall, is portrayed as just being a very STUPID man, a LOSER. He even acts STUPID most of the time, as when he tries to exit the attorney's office through the wrong door, and when he loses his luggage and money when he falls asleep on the bus, and he consistently wears a STUPID, LOSER expression on his face throughout the whole film. His expression reminds me of a deer caught in the headlights. There is nothing in Tom's character that would suggest that he was a college lecturer and a novelist, as he says he is in the film. There is a suggestion early in the film that Tom was previously in a hospital, presumably a mental hospital, and his "imaginary" lover Margrit, I suppose, is supposed to be a psychotic hallucination. But mentally ill people don't act the way Tom does. The screenwriter and the director failed to differentiate between mental illness and STUPIDITY.

Although Tom's supposedly a former college lecturer and a novelist, he can't find a better job in Paris than working as a "guard" of some sort. Even without a work permit, someone with Tom's education would be able to find a better job "off the books" just by going around Paris and talking to people, by using the verbal skills that enabled him to write a novel. and to be a lecturer on literature. He even looks pathetic and incompetent in his first approach to Margrit at the literary party. His verbal skills in trying to "pick up" Margrit are pathetic.

The whole premise that Tom came all the way to Paris just to be with his daughter is ill conceived. He seems to have moved to Paris without any preparation, with no place to stay, and no job prospects. Only a LOSER would move from the USA to Paris so unprepared. That he stumbles into a café after his money is stolen where the owner,Serez is willing to give him a room without any money up front is an unreal :coincidence". That the same Serez just happens to have an "off the books" job for Tom when he needs one is another unreal "coincidence". Such "unreal coincidences" in a screenplay indicate a weak substitution of a literary artifice for real creative thought.

That Tom would become involved with the café waitress Annia without knowing that she is already Serez's girlfriend is just STUPID. Only a LOSER could spend as much time at the café as Tom did without picking up on the fact that Serez already had something going with Annia. That Annia would be so forward in her attempts to seduce Tom without at least advising him that she has some sort of romantic attachment to Serez, an obviously "bad dude", is even more STUPID.

The whole nature of the "guard" job that Serez gives Tom is STUPID. Tom seems to understand that there is something shady going on behind the locked door that he monitors, but is seemingly not concerned that his "guard" job might be implicating him in criminal activity. That the viewer is never informed about what the nature of the "mysterious" business is behind the door that Tom is "guarding" is even more STUPID, and is merely indicative of a flaky screenplay.

The whole business about Margrit is STUPID. The detective that was questioning Tom goes to Margrit's apartment only to return to tell Tom that Margrit committed suicide years before. So if Margrit is just some sort of psychotic hallucination by Tom, then how did Tom get the illusory woman's name correct, and even know her correct address? Psychotic hallucinations don't travel back in time and "attach" themselves to already dead people, and to their last known address when they were alive. What Tom was experiencing was more like a paranormal, or a voodoo experience, and nothing like mental illness at all. People who are mentally ill enough to hallucinate do not do so only part of the time. People mentally ill enough to hallucinate as vividly as Tom supposedly did about Margrit, are VERY mentally ill ALL of the time. The character Tom in this film is not convincingly portrayed as being mentally ill at all, but, rather, as a LOSER. And LOSERS do not have psychotic hallucinations but rather, are more likely to end up sitting on a street curb in skid row drinking out of a wine bottle.

After the detective tells Tom that Margrit killed herself years ago, why didn't Tom produce the calling card Margrit gave him at the party, or advise the detective about the bookstore owner who invited Tom to that party? Tom isn't shown going back to the bookstore owner to try to confirm that a "real" Margrit even attended the party. There's a BIG "hole" in the storyline right here.

Overall, there is no discernible "meaning" in this film for me. This film doesn't even "just spins a good yarn" because the film doesn't even give the viewer any kind of clear story. It's just about the aimless wanderings of an inadequate, incompetent man, a LOSER, with a consistently STUPID look on his face that has some kind of paranormal, or voodoo experience involving a woman who's been dead for many years.

THIS FILM IS A LOSER. The money and time spent on making this film was just a WASTE.