I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

the audience applauded

One of my all time favorites.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Pawel Pawlikowski's Woman In The Fifth (2011) is just a VERY POOR film, in my opinion. The character of Tom Ricks is ill conceived and quite frankly pathetic. Tom, overall, is portrayed as just being a very STUPID man, a LOSER. He even acts STUPID most of the time, as when he tries to exit the attorney's office through the wrong door, and when he loses his luggage and money when he falls asleep on the bus, and he consistently wears a STUPID, LOSER expression on his face throughout the whole film. His expression reminds me of a deer caught in the headlights. There is nothing in Tom's character that would suggest that he was a college lecturer and a novelist, as he says he is in the film. There is a suggestion early in the film that Tom was previously in a hospital, presumably a mental hospital, and his "imaginary" lover Margrit, I suppose, is supposed to be a psychotic hallucination. But mentally ill people don't act the way Tom does. The screenwriter and the director failed to differentiate between mental illness and STUPIDITY.Although Tom's supposedly a former college lecturer and a novelist, he can't find a better job in Paris than working as a "guard" of some sort. Even without a work permit, someone with Tom's education would be able to find a better job "off the books" just by going around Paris and talking to people, by using the verbal skills that enabled him to write a novel. and to be a lecturer on literature. He even looks pathetic and incompetent in his first approach to Margrit at the literary party. His verbal skills in trying to "pick up" Margrit are pathetic.The whole premise that Tom came all the way to Paris just to be with his daughter is ill conceived. He seems to have moved to Paris without any preparation, with no place to stay, and no job prospects. Only a LOSER would move from the USA to Paris so unprepared. That he stumbles into a café after his money is stolen where the owner,Serez is willing to give him a room without any money up front is an unreal :coincidence". That the same Serez just happens to have an "off the books" job for Tom when he needs one is another unreal "coincidence". Such "unreal coincidences" in a screenplay indicate a weak substitution of a literary artifice for real creative thought.That Tom would become involved with the café waitress Annia without knowing that she is already Serez's girlfriend is just STUPID. Only a LOSER could spend as much time at the café as Tom did without picking up on the fact that Serez already had something going with Annia. That Annia would be so forward in her attempts to seduce Tom without at least advising him that she has some sort of romantic attachment to Serez, an obviously "bad dude", is even more STUPID.The whole nature of the "guard" job that Serez gives Tom is STUPID. Tom seems to understand that there is something shady going on behind the locked door that he monitors, but is seemingly not concerned that his "guard" job might be implicating him in criminal activity. That the viewer is never informed about what the nature of the "mysterious" business is behind the door that Tom is "guarding" is even more STUPID, and is merely indicative of a flaky screenplay.The whole business about Margrit is STUPID. The detective that was questioning Tom goes to Margrit's apartment only to return to tell Tom that Margrit committed suicide years before. So if Margrit is just some sort of psychotic hallucination by Tom, then how did Tom get the illusory woman's name correct, and even know her correct address? Psychotic hallucinations don't travel back in time and "attach" themselves to already dead people, and to their last known address when they were alive. What Tom was experiencing was more like a paranormal, or a voodoo experience, and nothing like mental illness at all. People who are mentally ill enough to hallucinate do not do so only part of the time. People mentally ill enough to hallucinate as vividly as Tom supposedly did about Margrit, are VERY mentally ill ALL of the time. The character Tom in this film is not convincingly portrayed as being mentally ill at all, but, rather, as a LOSER. And LOSERS do not have psychotic hallucinations but rather, are more likely to end up sitting on a street curb in skid row drinking out of a wine bottle.After the detective tells Tom that Margrit killed herself years ago, why didn't Tom produce the calling card Margrit gave him at the party, or advise the detective about the bookstore owner who invited Tom to that party? Tom isn't shown going back to the bookstore owner to try to confirm that a "real" Margrit even attended the party. There's a BIG "hole" in the storyline right here.Overall, there is no discernible "meaning" in this film for me. This film doesn't even "just spins a good yarn" because the film doesn't even give the viewer any kind of clear story. It's just about the aimless wanderings of an inadequate, incompetent man, a LOSER, with a consistently STUPID look on his face that has some kind of paranormal, or voodoo experience involving a woman who's been dead for many years.THIS FILM IS A LOSER. The money and time spent on making this film was just a WASTE.

American writer/lecturer Tom Ricks (Ethan Hawke) comes to Paris desperate to reconnect with his daughter. He's not wanted by his ex. He ends up in a dilapidated hotel where the manager Sezer is holding his passport hostage. He works for the unsavory character watching a door. His neighbor is a threatening brute. Then he meets Margit (Kristin Scott Thomas) at a literary party. They have an affair. He's stalking his little girl. He has another affair with the café girl which could cause him trouble with Sezer.This is trying to be an atmospheric moody mystery thriller. The pacing is too slow to be thrilling. The atmosphere is indie adjacent and a little dreary. It could be much more moody and stylish. The one thing that this movie desperately needs is energy. Ethan Hawke is decidedly angry and tired. Writer/director Pawel Pawlikowski has a certain style here, and it grinds away at the movie. It's a movie that is trying to come up with something compelling.

Gotta problem here! Have no idea whatsoever what this movie was all about. Yet I enjoyed it. The photography, the grim background music, the seamy surroundings in the gritty underbelly of Paris, the many angry, brooding characters, combine to create a foreboding and ominous mood. Technically the film is a masterpiece. But what the hell is it all about??? A rather screwed up American writer goes to Paris and gets even more screwed up. What was going on in the mysterious underground bunker? Who committed the murder and what was the motive? Was their any explanation of the 1992 suicide? What was the stuff in the forest all about? Who was the woman? What actually happened to the little girl? Where did our mixed up writer go at the end? You know from the early scenes that nobody will be living happily ever after. Indeed there is some reason to believe a couple of them won't even live at all! (Deliberately vague here to keep the spoilers as fuzzy as possible.) And why are there so many trains, train tracks and train sounds? If you like to analyze camera angles and have an interest in film production, you'll enjoy it the way I did. If you like artsey dartsey symbolism and long discussions about what it all means, this is your film. If you want to be entertained, avoid it. If you don't want to get depressed and suicidal, avoid it like the plague. Really odd but very well done film!

Before I watched this movie I was warned about all the unanswered questions that many reviews had mentioned. And there surely are lots of unanswered questions and an incomplete feeling. But I think I get it - it's told from the point of view of a schizophrenic person and ONLY his point of view. And for that it is actually quite good.Everything isn't neatly explained at the end - but it doesn't really need to be. In life you don't really get to see things from all points of view anyway. What is hinted at is good enough. Of course it would have been more satisfying to have explanatory sequences or flashbacks to show how the murder took place or how the fantasy of Kristin Scott Thomas's character evolved. Or how his daughter was taken and released.The acting is fine. Ethan Hawke is quite good in this complex role. He's a bit gaunt and disheveled but that's the role. Kristin is stylishly alluring. Liked the twist that the minorities who seem menacing are actually not the real terror.The unresolved issues might put many off and hurt its box office. So might the rather ugly portrayal of Paris. But overall I think it is worth a watch if you bear in mind the unique point of view and the incompleteness is deliberate.