(TV SERIES) The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window - Interesting Dark Comedy, Mystery Mini Series

This was one of the series that I looked forward to which happened to be released last Friday as well. But as I said in my previous posts, I started to watch this only on Sunday noon and completed it on the same day. And here's more on the series.

Brief Story Line

Feeling depressed due to a tragedy, Anna (Kristen Bell - Frozen II, Bad Moms etc) was living by herself after separating with her husband Douglas (Michael Ealy - Stumptown TV series etc). She had a bad habit of drinking wine with her pills, which could sometime cause hallucination. One day a new handsome neighbor named Neil (Tom Riley - The Nevers TV series etc) and his 9 year old daughter Emma (Samsara Yett) moved in to the house across the street and Anna was immediately interested.

However, when one night she saw a person getting murdered from her window and called for help, she got herself into trouble with the police as they could not find any body. Even her best friend Sloane (Mary Holland - Happiest Season etc) was a bit skeptical with Anna, although she still fully supported her.

So did Anna actually witnessed a murder or was it just her imagination? You could find them all in this mini series.

End of Brief Story Line

Well that was really interesting. I mentioned above that I managed to finish the series quite fast. Apparently it was having short duration of < 1/2 hour per episode and with only 8 episodes, it did not take too long to complete it. My early impression of this series was a bit surprised of the rather depressing feeling looking at the lead character Anna who was suffering from acute depression. Subsequently though, looking at how excited she was when the new neighbor appeared, the story became more fun.

However, it did not take long before something surprising occurred that shattered Anna's dream and from that moment on, it was truly intriguing to find out more. This kind of story of looking through the window and witnessing something in the neighbors' home had been told so many times in movies or TV series with varying degree of success (there was even an Indonesian movie with such premise that I saw last year). Anyway, what set this one apart was the fact that the protagonist was not totally confined in her own house as she could still go around, except when there was a sudden weather change (you'll understand why once you watch this).

The way the investigation done by Anna and the sometimes dramatic situation she was in was greatly shown due to the wonderful performance by Kristen Bell. No wonder her performance was praised by critics. In addition to the main cast, there was also the appearance of Cameron Britton (The Umbrella Academy TV series etc) as Buell the handyman, Shelley Hennig (Teen Wolf TV series etc) as Lisa, Christina Anthony as Detective Lane and few others, including a surprise cameo of one well known star. 

This series was put under dark comedy, mystery, thriller genre which I thought was correctly categorized. It was given maturity rating of 18+ by Netflix due to violence, nudity, language and said to be deadpan & absurd. The purposely very long title should have given us indication that this one would bring that dark humor side. Although it might have been inspired by the voyeurism premise, this one got a bit extreme in certain areas, in particular the twists. That last twist was shocking, but it might have been a bit too much for me. Btw that scene before the end was really awesome to my opinion as it made the series quite memorable. It was pretty amazing when I saw that this was not based on anything, so the creators Rachel Ramras, Hugh Davidson & Larry Dorf should be applauded for their creativity.

Even if the mystery in this series was not the truly complicated type, it was still fun looking at Kristen Bell trying to find out the truth while facing her own personal demon and combined with a bit of dark comedies and few twists. I myself was pretty entertained by the series, except maybe for that last twist which was too extreme. My wife has not seen this one yet, but I think most likely she would be able to know the final twist since she is definitely better than me at this kind of mystery story. So if you are interested in having a bit of fun and you have little free time, then this would be perfect for you with its short duration.  

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars