The Woman in the Fifth (2012)
Average Rating: 5.8/10
Reviews Counted: 54
Fresh: 34 | Rotten: 20
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 5.8/10
Critic Reviews: 20
Fresh: 12 | Rotten: 8
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 2.6/5
User Ratings: 2,914
My Rating
Movie Info
American writer Tom Ricks comes to Paris desperate to put his life together again and win back the love of his estranged wife and daughter. When things don't go according to plan, he ends up in a shady hotel in the suburbs, having to work as a night guard to make ends meet.
Then Margit, a beautiful, mysterious stranger walks into his life and things start looking up. Their passionate and intense relationship triggers a string of inexplicable events... as if an obscure power was taking
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Cast
-
Ethan Hawke
Tom, Tom Ricks -
Kristin Scott Thomas
Margit -
Joanna Kulig
Ania -
Samir Guesmi
Sezer -
Delphine Chuillot
Nathalie -
Julie Papillon
Chloe -
Geoffrey Carey
Laurent -
Mamadou Minté
Omar -
Mohamed Aroussi
Moussa -
Jean-Louis Cassarino
Dumont -
Judith Burnett
Lorraine l'herbert -
Marcela Iacub
Isabella -
Wilfred Benaiche
Lieutenant Coutard -
Pierre Marcoux
Lawyer -
Rosine Favey
Lawyer's Translator -
Anne Benoît
Teacher -
Grégory Gadebois
Lieutenant children uni... -
Donel Jacks'man
Customs Officer -
Laurent Levy
Margit's Neighbour -
Doug Rand
American writer 1 -
Tercelin Kirtley
American writer 2 -
Nicolas Beaucaire
Passer-by
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The Woman in the Fifth Trailer & Photos
All Critics (55) | Top Critics (20) | Fresh (34) | Rotten (20) | DVD (1)
"The Woman in the Fifth" leaves so many holes unfilled that instead of ending up intriguing, it's just plain frustrating.
Top CriticThose who prefer tidy, "Murder, She Wrote" closure are advised to shop elsewhere.
A thankless lead vehicle for Ethan Hawke who's left largely stranded by writer-director Pawel Pawlikowski's opaque adaptation of Douglas Kennedy's novel.
The movie casts such a seductive air of mystery that the resolution feels anticlimactic, yet there's plenty to enjoy along the way, particularly Hawke's nuanced lead performance as a quiet man with secrets of his own.
When do we first sense reality slip away? Do we? Can the film be accepted on its own terms? Can the point of view be trusted?
It is guaranteed to haunt you for awhile.
Though it's disguised as a "thriller," there's a good deal more than thrills to savor and ponder in The Woman in the Fifth.
A dark testimonial to the notion of artistic bloom and creative salvation through misery -- an intellectually engaging puzzle box, a movie that happily dances about on both literal and metaphorical planes.
Too many questions are left unaddressed, much less unanswered, in its rush to a meager non-payoff.
The last fifth of "Fifth" is pretty unsatisfying. But the rest of it is tense, intelligent fun.
An arresting film but ultimately an unsatisfying one, creating an effectively menacing mood but not delivering much dramatic punch, especially in a disappointing final twist.
[Mostly slow, this film at least] has some absorbing moments of strange sexuality, haunt and mystery.
Ethan Hawke gives a standout bilingual performance in this low-key psychological thriller.
Reveal too much and you've done all the heavy lifting for the audience. Reveal too little and they're left scratching their heads. The Woman in the Fifth will leave you very itchy indeed.
The Woman in the Fifth leaves a tantalizing trail of breadcrumbs only to lead us to...one last breadcrumb.
For all the promise of minor-key, David Lynch-esque surrealism with a French twist, the movie offers perilously little payoff.
Hawke's sympathetic performance gives the film an emotional continuity that seems to make sense of things even when things don't make sense at all.
It's a thing of beauty to watch Ethan Hawke and Kristin Scott Thomas work together, but we'd be lying if we said we understood this drama.
Audience Reviews for The Woman in the Fifth
Super Reviewer
Ethan Hawke plays American writer Tom Ricks who is trying to make an connection with his daughter, but what begins as a rather ordinary kind of drama very soon spirals out of control and goes into a completely and utterly stupid direction.
Director/writer Pawlikowski clearly thinks that he has invented something truly original with his story, but quite honestly he has created a one of the most confusing and logic defying screenplays in many moons and not in a good way. This is a film about nothing, nobody and travel to nowhere. There is no beginning and there is no ending. There is just this stupid and cheap entertainment which is aiming to be something much more psychological, artsy and complex than it actually is.
Those who are looking for good mystery thriller won't find it here. This is just complete waste of time.
Super Reviewer
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- Tom Ricks: Can we just talk like normal people?
-
- Margit: Stay here with me.
- Tom Ricks: For how long?
- Margit: Indefinitely.
Discussion Forum
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Latest News on The Woman in the Fifth
June 15, 2012:
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Foreign Titles
- Die geheimnisvolle Fremde (DE)
- The Woman in the Fifth (La femme du Vème) (UK)
What I will say is that this film is very atmospheric, filmed in a style where the foreground is always in focus, while the background is often fuzzy. This point of view is overused in my opinion, though it does give you the sense that all is not quite right with what you are viewing.
For me, the first 2/3 of the film are interesting and solid enough; it's just in the last third that the film somehow managed to be far too slow and yet felt rushed at the same time - quite a feat! It's as if director Pawel Pawilowski realized that the script had some serious holes and couldn't decide how best to camouflage - either by getting all artsy (hoping the audience would forget the holes) or racing past the potholes hoping the audience wouldn't feel the bounce. Now, I'm going to (kind of) reveal a spoiler here - the ending is totally predicable and hardly surprising, and for me at least, not the big payoff that Pawilowski was hoping for. For me I felt jerked around, even though the resolution was exactly what I expected it to be... it just felt too pat and, to be frank, amateurish. Too bad, for the story could have been compelling in surer hands.