Netflix has amassed a small fortune through its proliferous amount of twisting and turning mystery series. As of this writing, the deliriously plotted “Stay Close,” based on a book by the prodigious mystery writer Harlan Coben, is firmly in the top half of the top ten, and a piece of B-show escapism called “Clickbait” was one of their biggest hits of 2021. People love to watch a thriller with just enough surprises to keep them wanting to binge the next episode but not quite complex enough that they can’t use their phone while they watch. At first, especially given its unwieldy title, “The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window” feels like a broad parody of this trend, a sort of “Scary Movie” or “Airplane!” for the era when people rewatch “Gone Girl” and “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” and binge true crime podcasts in a way that has turned them into an industry. And yet, this comedy/thriller isn’t exactly that as it blandly fails to provide either laughs or suspense, not so much a genre hybrid as a show caught in the gap between genres. It’s a strangely inert show, one that never seemed to settle on a tone and so never bothered to create one. There are plot elements that are so ridiculous that one has to call this a spoof, especially in the final episodes, and yet most of it is played deadly straight. It’s as if half the writers thought they were making a comedy and the other half a thriller. And the only case it really solves is proving how difficult it is to do that kind of genre hybrid in a much better show like “Dead to Me.”
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It’s a shame this show is such a mess because Kristen Bell deserves better. The star of “Veronica Mars” and “The Good Place” still has ace timing and notable likability as Anna, a heartbroken woman who is still grieving the loss of her daughter, usually in large glasses of wine. She obsessively checks her ex-husband’s (Michael Ealy) Instagram feed to see if he’s moved on to someone new, barely getting through each day in her picture-perfect suburban neighborhood. Anna’s life changes when a handsome Brit moves in across the street. Neil (Tom Riley) seems to have everything that Anna needs, including even a sweet daughter named Emma (Samsara Yett), who happens to be around the age of Anna’s deceased child. Can Anna find happiness right across the street with a new family to replace the one she lost? What about the fact that she can barely leave the house, so traumatized when it rains that she passes out in the street while trying to take her new neighbor a casserole? And how will Anna get around the gorgeous woman named Lisa (Shelley Hennig) who is getting Neil’s attention?
As anyone who has seen “The Woman in the Window” can predict, Anna spies something horrific one night, believing she’s seen the murder of poor Lisa. Just as in that Joe Wright film, the authorities try to assure Anna that no crime has been committed. Neil has texts from Lisa after she was reportedly stabbed. Anna must have mixed pills and wine again and imagined the whole thing. Of course, there’s no show if that’s 100% true.
Created by the comedy writing trio of Rachel Ramras, Hugh Davidson, and Larry Dorf, who created and starred in the underrated “Nobodies” on TV Land from 2017-2018, “The Woman in the House” (which was the original, better title until the goofier one came along last month) starts with promise. Bell has always excelled at imbuing her characters with melancholy and it’s nice to see her allowed to dig into that dramatic side a bit more. However, one of many problems with the production of this show is that Bell is virtually alone when it comes to standouts in the cast. It’s more an issue of the writing, but shows like “Dead to Me” have rich ensembles beyond one leading lady. The supporting cast here is filled with roles that are merely props in the ridiculous thriller plotline. There are no surprising character beats. No memorable supporting characters. This show needed to be filled with eccentric personalities around Anna instead of the bland ones the writing provides. Imagine “Desperate Housewives” with one housewife, or a show like “Only Murders in the Building” with just Selena Gomez. No offense to Ms. Gomez, but that would give you some idea how stranded Bell often feels on this program, trying to find someone to bounce comedic timing off or even allow to steal a scene or two (Benjamin Levy Aguilar’s Rex comes closest in that department, but is appearance is brief).
If the thin characters weren’t dispiriting enough, the plotting is insanely ridiculous, but never in a way that’s entertaining. Of course, our increasing obsession with killers and victims is fertile ground for parody, but this show never really qualifies. It’s a bizarrely dry show in terms of humor, which is especially odd given how often dark thrillers come with wicked streaks of comic relief—“Gone Girl” has some very funny beats, for example, and more laughs overall than this entire season. It doesn’t seem that hard to take a concept like “The Woman in the Window” and blend it with our true crime obsession in a way that ends in a comedy, but that’s not really this show. It’s too intent on taking Anna seriously, including her grief and plight, but none of the plotting or characters feel real. And so it becomes an exercise in clichés, as if including them like some sort of 2020s thriller checklist is the same thing as actually writing a joke about them. It’s not. [D]
“The Woman In The House Across The Street From The Girl In The Window” debuts on Netflix on January 28.