Last night i watched the DVD of The Woman In The Fifth, a film by Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski, and was adapted from a novel by Douglas Kennedy with the same title.
In the film, American writer Tom Ricks (Ethan Hawke) arrives in Paris to be closer to his young daughter who lives with his ex-wife. We learn that the divorce was caused by Tom's mental illness, from which he has apparently recovered. Completely broke, he accepts a job as a night guard for a local crime boss who owns a run down hostel. Stationed in a basement office, his only task is to push a button when a bell rings. The tranquility of the night, he hopes, will help him focus on his new novel. His days become more exciting when he starts a romance with Margit (Kristin Scott Thomas), a mysterious and elegant widow who sets strange rules to their meetings: she will only see him at her apartment in the fifth arrondissement, at 5pm sharp, twice a week and he should ask no questions about her work or her past life. He also gets closer to Ania (Joanna Kulig), the Polish barmaid of the hostel where he lives, who has literary interests.
Tom's relationship with Ania eventually becomes a sexual affair, and his neighbor blackmails him about it. Shortly after the neighbor is killed, his daughter goes missing, and Tom begins to believe that a dark force has entered his life, punishing anyone who has recently done him wrong. After the police accuse him of murdering his neighbor, Tom tries to use his weekly visits to Margit's apartment as an alibi. The police check and find out that she died and hasn't lived at this address for the past 15 years. He is let go, after the police determines that the murderer was in fact the owner of the hostel. When the two meet in the corridor of the police station, one is led to believe that somebody planted evidence to frame the owner of the hostel.
He continues the affair with Ania, but also decides to encounter Margit again, and tells her she is not real. She says she is the most real love he'll encounter in his life, and that she knows him from the inside. She tells him to say lose his muse and say goodbye to his wife and daughter. They embrace and he accuses her of having done something with his daughter, and he starts to choke her. His daughter is eventually found wandering in the forest, and is reunited with her mother.
In the final scene, Anya waits for him at the Bar but Tom ascending the stairs once again to Margit's apartment and the movie fades out as the door opens . . .
Enigmatic and definitely an art house type of film. Director Pawlikowski saw the film as "a story about a man torn between the need for family and stability and the need to be creative". Needs a few more screenings before i give it the total thumbs up.
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