Product Details

• Actors: Ethan Hawke, Kristin Scott Thomas, Joanna Kulig, Samir Guesmi, Delphine Chuillot
• Directors: Pawel Pawlikowski
• Format: Color, Dolby, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English, French
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: New Video Group
• DVD Release Date: September 18, 2012
• Run Time: 85 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00883OY7G
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #34,900 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Intriguing" --Slant Magazine

"Hypnotic" --Hollywood Reporter

Product Description

Product Description

Based on Douglas Kennedy's best-selling international thriller, THE WOMAN IN THE FIFTH follows American novelist Tom Ricks (AcademyAward® nominee Ethan Hawke, Before Sunset, Training Day) as he arrives in Paris determined to renew a relationship with his estranged wife and daughter. When the longed-for meeting goes poorly, he ends up in a seedy hostel on the outskirts of the city. Unable to pay for his room and board, he agrees to work as a night guard at a warehouse for the proprietor (Samir Guesmi, Tell No One) and spends the hours writing elaborate, imaginative letters to his daughter. One evening, after he's invited to a literary gathering, Tom meets Margit (Academy Award® nominee Kristin Scott Thomas, The English Patient), an enigmatic translator whose magnetic presence and worldly manner intrigue the down-and-out author. She seduces him, haughtily dictating the time and place of their rendezvous in the Fifth Arrondissement. Their passionate affair coincides with a string of inexplicable events, and slowly Tom's anxieties and inner torments begin to derange his sense of what's real.

Special Features:

• Making of THE WOMAN IN THE FIFTH
• English and French with English Subtitles
• Alternate English audio track

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 20 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A Labyrinth of Questions of Fantasy and Reality June 17, 2012

By Grady Harp HALL OF FAMETOP 50 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:DVD

Douglas Kennedy's perplexing novel THE WOMAN IN THE FIFTH has been further contorted by writer/director Pawel Pawlikowski for the film of the same name (aka La femme du Vème). If the viewer has read the novel then the confusion of the story will not be as surprising as it is to the novice viewer. In many ways this is a brilliant cinematic exploration of the fragility of the human mind, how events of the past can influence the manner in which we attempt to reconstruct a viable present. But in other ways this is a film that refuses to tell a story that is logical and will leave many viewers with some serious head scratching by movie's end.

Academic professor of literature and writer Tom Hicks (Ethan Hawke) seems to be fleeing America in the wake of a scandal simply because he wants to see his six-year-old daughter Chloé (Julie Papillon): Tom's estranged wife Nathalie (Delphine Chuillot) refuses to let Tom see his daughter, has a restraining order in place and seems fearful of Tom's character (it is suggested that Tom may have been in prison for the past six years). The police are called and Tom escapes onto a bus, falls asleep and s awakened at the end of the line having been robbed of this luggage and money. He is in the sleazy part of Paris inhabited by North Africans and Moroccans and finds a degree of solace in a tiny café, the beautiful Polish waitress Ania (Joanna Kulig) offers him coffee and introduces him to the owner, Sezer (Samir Guesmi) who allows him to room in the filthy place, an offer that is accompanied by a `job' where he will be a night watchman in a warehouse visited by shadowy figures who must give a code for Tom to allow entry. Tom uses his night jobsite to write lengthy letters to Chloé and spends his days spying on her at her school.... At a bookstore he meets a fellow American who invites him to an evening reception for writers and there he encounters the very strange Margit (Kristin Scott Thomas), a bewitching but enigmatic widow of a Hungarian writer who is obviously attracted to Tom and sets meeting times and places for them to engage in a tryst (in the Fifth Arrondissement). Tom and Margit begin a tempestuous physical affair but at the same time Tom and Ania have an equally passionate affair and there is always in the background Tom's obsession to reunite with his daughter. But the story implodes with a murder, a disappearance, and a very strange change in the veracity of Margit's existence. It is at this point that the film becomes purposefully deranged and bizarre and the audience is left with merely some ideas and clues as to what has really happened. How are these incongruous events to make sense? Can they make sense? Is Tom succumbing to the same fever that kept him sheltered for many days upon his arrival in beautiful Paris? Has time somehow passed him by or is he living in an even grander deceit than he first thought?

The film is basically in French with English subtitles. Ethan Hawke struggle with the French but that is credible for a `just arrived' American. Kristin Scott Thomas offers her usual excellent skills as the strange Margit and the remainder of the cast do well with what little dialogue they are given. The dank atmospheric cinematography is by Ryszard Lenczewski and the correctly strange musical score (from an aria form a Handel opera sung by a countertenor to piano music excerpts form the Romantic era) is the work of Max de Wardener. Pawel Pawlikowski`s moody, menacing, downbeat film takes something from the director's Polish compatriots Polanski and Kieslowski. It is offbeat but for those who appreciate experimental cinema this is well worth your time. Grady Harp, June 12 Read more ›

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars I EXIST AS MUCH AS YOU EXIST December 10, 2012

By Michael TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:DVD

Tom Ricks (Ethan Hawke) is an American novelist who goes to Paris in hopes of patching up his relationship with his ex-wife (Delphine Chuillot) and daughter (Julie Papillon). She wants nothing to do with him because of some event in their past, which is not fully explained. Through a series of bad luck he ends up working for a man named Sezer (Samir Guesmi) as a night time doorman, a job steeped with symbolism as he works on his second novel.

Meanwhile, Tom meets a mysterious older woman (Kristin Scott Thomas) who has taken a shine to him. She is the "Woman in the Fifth." He begins an affair with her about the same time he takes up with Sezer's girlfriend, his "Polish muse" (Joanna Kulig). We don't know how weird things really are until near the end of the tale.

If I told you I understood everything in this film, I would be lying. There is symbolism in his forest writing, the bugs, and the light which dims and goes bright, none of which I fully understood. Then there is the weird aspect of the movie which turns this into an existential film, something I didn't fully comprehend. I didn't think it was worth watching a second time through in an attempt to make heads or tails out of the film.

This is an artsy film. It is in part in English and French with subtitles, and Polish with no subtitles. The action moves slow as it concentrates on the character of Tom Ricks. I am looking for a good plot spoiler review to tell me what I just watched.

Parental Guide: F-bomb (in French, spelled correctly for us in English), sex, no nudity.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Not happy. Read the book. Much better. July 12, 2012

By Mallorie Marshall

Format:Amazon Instant Video

Very disappointed by this movie. The book was great and so I anticipated the movie would be as well, especially after seeing who was going to star in the movie.

Very disappointed. Slow moving movie - lots missing...

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Weird. November 15, 2012

By Kate Smart

Format:DVD

I admire Kristen Scott Thomas and I find Ethan Hawke to be an actor who consistently chooses interesting roles. This film received a good review from Roger Ebert, so we watched it. (On Netflix)

This is the dreariest film I've seen in years. The acting is good, but the story has no real structure and becomes increasingly bewildering as the movie proceeds. Ethan Hawke seems to be existing in a parallel universe, and suffering from some sort of mental illness. He is supposedly in Paris to see his daughter, but aside from peering at her through a fence once or twice, nothing further develops. Hawke's character lives in a seamy squalid room above an equally dismal coffee shop, weird things happen that have no explanation, he is given a weird job monitoring a screen in what seems to be a bunker of sorts where strange things may or may not be occuring, Kristen Scott Thomas's character is apparently a figment of his imagination... It just gets less and less interesting and there is not a single moment of normalcy. Everyone is weird. The whole film is weird, and not in a good way.

When it ended, my husband and I looked at each other, rolled our eyes, and immediatley began talking about other things. A pointless waste of an evening. A can find nothing to recommend about this film.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Complex and imaginative, this is a very well shot movie that leaves you with more questions than answers. May 23, 2013

By S. J. Moriarty

Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase

If you like films that require you to think, this film is for you. It is fascinating and open ended, requiring you to come to your own conclusions, and is beautifully done to boot. You can and probably will watch this film more than once.