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 control of his life.
Reviews
The Daily Telegraph
David Gritten
“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.”
17/02/2012
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Time Out
Dave Calhoun
“A mysterious, troubling study of loss, exile and despair which flirts awkwardly with thriller conventions but sticks in the mind as a portrait of a man crumbling in the face of an unwelcoming world. ”
14/02/2012
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Empire Magazine
Liz Beardsworth
“Hampered by an at times overtly ‘European arthouse’ feel, this is nonetheless an unsettling meditation that plays with ideas of memory, grief, mental illness and even the supernatural, with Hawke, Kulig and Scott Thomas on affecting form.”
13/02/2012
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The Evening Standard
Charlotte O'Sullivan
“The mystery being explored - it turns out - is why a loving parent might choose to take their own life. The Woman in the Fifth offers a riddle in the dark and the simple answer is haunting.”
17/02/2012
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The Guardian
Peter Bradshaw
“This film has to be indulged a little, and you'll have to negotiate the stumbling block that is Hawke's stodgy, dodgy French accent. Yet this movie moves at a sinuous, confident pace. ”
16/02/2012
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The Daily Mail
James O'Brien
“Hawke is splendid in this psychological thriller with supernatural nuances. So robustly does he reject the Hollywood heart-throbbery of his youth that his teeth could conceivably have been borrowed from an Englishman.”
17/02/2012
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Scotland on Sunday
Siobhan Synnot
“Even if she may be a product of an academic’s imagination, does a vamp have to ring so many familiar bells that it’s a struggle not to alert the cliché police? Scott-Thomas is a great actress but she’s a control freak playing a possible basket case, and although the film is 85 minutes long, that paradox barely reaches the end of the movie alive.”
12/02/2012
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Total Film
Tom Dawson
“Contrived attempts to ‘explain’ the film’s many mysteries ultimately disappoint.”
06/02/2012
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The Independent on Sunday
Nicholas Barber
“It's an intriguing, noir-ish tale, with an unsettling air of surrealism and a vein of black humour. But when it drifts to a conclusion after a mere 83 minutes, you're left feeling that The Woman In The Fifth is a minor film assembled from all-too-familiar parts. ”
19/02/2012
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Variety
Justin Chang
“With the exception of Tom and Margit's meeting on a rooftop terrace near the Eiffel Tower, Paris is made to look almost completely uninviting, which would be a dubious achievement even in a more satisfying thriller than this one.”
15/09/2012
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The Independent
Anthony Quinn
“The film, seemingly poised for revelation, begins to fold in on itself, its narrative boobytraps mistimed and muddling.”
17/02/2012
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The Times
Kevin Maher
“Proof, yet again, that thematic intrigue and ambiguity on the page can quickly become narrative ineptitude and idiocy on the big screen.”
17/02/2012
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The Sunday Times
Cosmo Landesman
“A film that’s very pleased with itself, but instead of seducing us into an intriguing mystery, it is flat and colourless.”
19/02/2012
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