The Woman In The House Across The Street From The Girl In The Window

If you want a comedy, you’ll find very few laughs here. And if you want to watch a thriller, there are plenty of better ones on the same streaming service – maybe that’s why The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window is too nervous to properly twist the knife.

Overall, The Woman in the House Across the Street From the Girl in the Window is short enough to not be a complete time suck yet long enough for the central gag to overstay its welcome, but honestly, if you’re on Netflix looking for a series that is funny, involves murder and wine, and is also suspenseful, you would probably be better off watching or rewatching Dead to Me.

The Woman In The House Across The Street From The Girl In The Window is a smart parody of a very parody-ripe genre, but it also works well because Kristen Bell plays the main role with the right degree of seriousness.

Is there a way of making a genuinely suspenseful “darkly comedic” psychological thriller based on characters propelled by bereavement? This is the niche and slightly ridiculous question I found myself asking after watching TWITHATSFTGITW. Maybe Simon Pegg and Nick Frost could have pulled it off in the 00s, but it hasn’t happened here.

The title might be the funniest thing about The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window, which is sort of the verbal equivalent of that "Spaceballs" visual gag where the spaceship just won't end. Beyond that, this Netflix series provides a fun showcase for Kristen Bell but only a marginal reason to spend eight episodes gazing at the TV.

If there’s a reason to watch – and judging by the first three episodes, I’m not convinced there is – it’s for the mystery. But even that seems like it might be predictable.

Despite the strong performances, The Woman In The House is nothing more than a wasted opportunity to poke fun at, while still appreciating, successful thrillers.

It’s occasionally diverting for a while … until the show’s one joke starts to run out.

Other than the start of the finale, Woman is never mysterious in the slightest and only fitfully funny.

An often hilarious, sometimes genuinely suspenseful limited series that spoofs the alcohol-soaked, sad-voyeur movie mini-genre, unfortunately has a fatal flaw. After carefully mixing its sight gags with a plausible murder mystery, this show, premiering Friday, Jan. 28, goes off the rails like a commuter train carrying an inquisitive day drinker.

"The Woman in the House..." suffers from pacing issues and is stretched painfully thin at eight episodes (some as brief as 22 minutes), although it might have worked better as a movie, with the absurdity heightened, the fat trimmed and a more clear comic tone.

There's no doubt that the showrunners want Woman to be a parody, but the humor is oddly toothless — and satire without a point of view is like a casserole with no crunch.

While there were moments in The Woman in the House that made me laugh out loud and others that had me on the edge of my seat, the series would have gelled more had it included a few more satirical punches. That being said, the show's volatile tone does give it an off-the-wall edge – the like of which Netflix hasn't seen before – and is a welcome addition to the overcrowded list of same-y thrillers.

The Woman in the House only occasionally finds the right balance between laughing at well-worn genre tropes and indulging in them. The end result, then, is a lukewarm lark that could afford to be wackier and weirder in order to justify being in the same conversation as the films that it’s mocking.

The confusion of this multi-genre series and its far-fetched ending is only justified by Bell and her imminent watchability, which works no matter who she is portraying or how shabby the material she’s working with is. ... An empty calorie binge.

If you accept early on that "The Woman in the House Across the Street From the Girl in the Window" is trying to go over the top, you'll likely go along. The cast is uniformly good, and smart, Ms. Bell especially. ... "The Woman in the House Across the Street From the Girl in the Window" just finds the fun in popping genre balloons.

It’s ludicrous. It’s WAY over the top. It’s cheerfully offensive. And it’s an absolute hoot, thanks to the spot-on performance from Kristen Bell, the insightful scripts from writers who clearly know the genre and the deft directing work by the veteran Michael Lehmann, best known for “Heathers.”

It’s a layered trifle that’s funny at a buffoonery level but also repays careful attention — from the just-so chunky knits the characters wear to the ever-changing epitaph on Anna’s daughter’s gravestone. There’s something truly life-affirming in these leaden times about the show’s dedication to silliness.

There’s little to be found in “The Woman in the House Across the Street From the Girl in the Window” that you can’t find in the countless movies that already litter Netflix about women solving crimes. Bell is a strong lead, but if the series wants to be a send-up the humor needs to be more consistent. If it wants to play it straight, eschew humor entirely.