Film Reviews

The Woman In The Fifth

• Rating:
• Director: Pawel Pawlikowski
• Starring: Ethan Hawke
• Details: France/Poland/UK / 85mins (15A).

If the clichéd rom-com is about a woman who can't get a man but ends up with two before the end, then the cliched 'male writer's film' (a growing subgenre) usually contains a penniless writer in a picturesque city who meets women who say cryptic things before having sex with them in meadows by disused railway tracks. All those boxes are clicked in The Woman In The Fifth.
University lecturer and writer Tom Ricks (Hawke) is in Paris to reconcile with his ex-wife and gain access to his their daughter. Robbed of his wallet and clothes, Tom books himself into a cheap and dingy café/hotel, the type where the only other patron plays loud music and won't flush the shared toilet. In need of cash, proprietor Sesar (Guesmi) offers Tom a strange job as a security guard. Meanwhile, Tom meets into Margit (Thomas) at a writing get-together and they embark on a relationship.
As you probably can guess from that synopsis, the plot for The Woman In The Fifth is a higgledy-piggledy affair. Mixing elements of old Polanski thrillers before launching headlong into a nightmarish Lynchian twisteroo, this story gets more surreal as it moves slowly to its head-scratcher of a climax. With it, however, goes any sympathy for Tom and his situation. Marooned in a foreign city is okay to get on board with but once that's left behind and the story continues down a bizarre path – would you really give someone like Sesar your passport? - any understanding of Tom's actions becomes tapers off. Soon it's unclear why he's hanging around – he doesn't spend too much time with his daughter to warrant this turmoil and he ultimately forgets about her in the arms of Thomas and Kulig. Interest in his story wanes just as things are supposed to be heating up.
Director Pawlikowski's throws in odd little touches to keep curiosity levels high, like Hawke's security job, which entails letting people in a steel door if they possess the correct password; later, he finds a trail of blood inside the door. Hmm. Hawke's moody presence keeps the eyes on the screen but his character just isn't defined enough.
A curious little thriller that's impossible to second guess, the deliberate keeping of character at arm's length is alienating.

Review by Gavin Burke