The Woman in the Fifth (2011)

Genre: Drama

Directed by: Pawel Pawlikowski

Starring: Ethan Hawke, Kristin Scott Thomas

Running time: 85 minutes

This joint French-British-Polish drama tells the story of Tom Ricks, a divorced American novelist who moves to Paris to be closer to his young daughter, who lives with her mother. An inner battle starts within him between the need for family and the desire to create.

What started as a nice character study type of movie ended up being a complete mess. The Woman in the Fifth showed a lot of promise as it started out, but, by the end it, I could not help but wonder what was the point of the whole thing. It all ended up making no sense whatsoever to me.

Ethan Hawke and Kristin Scott Thomas are both pretty good here. There is one particular “love scene” between their characters that I found really effective storytelling-wise. Unfortunately, the story was not told effectively overall.

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