*This is a spoiler-free review so feel free to read on!*
“Playing detective is a dangerous game…”
The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window premiered on Netflix on January 28th 2022 with eight episodes available to stream now. The parody-thriller series stars Kristen Bell, Michael Ealy, Tom Riley, Shelley Hennig and Mary Holland. Each episode runs for approximately 25-29 minutes.
The series is meant to be a spoof of films like The Woman in the Window and The Girl on the Train but it also has its own mystery embedded into it which makes things over-complicated for our female protagonist.
Here is the trailer:
The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window has a promising premise and a female lead to die for, but does its own plot go off the rails along the way? Let’s find out…
The Pros:
No one but Kristen Bell could pull this off…
I am a huge fan of Kristen Bell and I loved her on Veronica Mars. We’ve seen her solve mysteries on her own over the years, but she is going about it in a completely different way this time around. This type of show is tricky to review and I am actually going to commend her on her intentional “bad acting,” which was so spot on and on another level.
It’s not easy doing this without looking completely ridiculous and somehow Kristen Bell just makes it work. She’s no stranger to doing voice-over narrations and she brought a charm like no other, which I think saved this series in a lot of ways for me.
The rest of the cast does a good job too and there is one cameo at the end worth sticking around for!
Short episodes.
This show is really easy to binge-watch. I finished all eight episodes in just one night since they are all just under a half hour. Even though the pacing needed some work at times, things moved pretty quickly for the most part. If the episodes were longer, I might have tuned out, but this worked in the show’s favor.
The Cons:
Over-complicates things…
I was really excited about this show and I was hoping it would nail the premise, but this was no easy task. This series wasn’t just a spoof like Scary Movie. It actually took a real story and plot and then just tried to really poke fun at a lot of the tropes we saw in The Woman in the Window.
The mystery itself kept me invested, but I don’t think all of the humor landed. I realize that this was an ambitious concept, but it may have got lost in translation along the way.
That being said, I still think there is enough worth sticking around for and Kristen Bell elevates the series in so many ways.
So am I in or out?
I’m in about 75 percent…
Kristen Bell really puts forth a valiant effort and keeps things fun, but I guess I had really high expectations for this one and it fell flat at times. That being said, I still think this is an enjoyable watch especially if you find yourself watching guilty-pleasure thrillers from time to time. You’ll appreciate the point of the series and will probably find yourself trying to figure out the mystery as well.
I hope you enjoyed the review and feel free to post your own thoughts and theories on The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window in the comments section below. Thanks so much for reading and happy viewing!
Best,
Amy Koto, TV Fanatic Girl
DON’T TAKE THE JOB…
It was only supposed to be temporary…but when Olivia Crewe accepts a new position that seems too good to be true, she soon discovers that twelve other girls previously had the same job as her. Only none of them lasted for more than thirty days. No notice. Nothing…right before they mysteriously disappeared without a trace.
My supernatural thriller Girl Number Thirteen is out now! I hope you enjoy!
Girl Number Thirteen is available here!
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