JoeKulik 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.

Liam Blackburn Mr. World? Where are you? Are you full of life? Are you full of grief? What is thine disposition? The writer holds the gate to the world. He opens the gate to the inner society of the mind. Writer! Tell us what is wrong with the world. We want to know. Is it in harmony? Is a dark encroaching fog about to envelop us all? Mr. Writer...tell us what's wrong with your world.....Express your inner torment...share it. We want to feel it to. We want to know we aren't alone in our suffering. Tell us....what is in that room...that room that no one is allowed to go in. The thing I like best about this movie is it doesn't try to do too much. It's very low-key. The symbolism is very strong but it doesn't shove it in your face. I think you have to be an artist to get this.

paul2001sw-1 'The Woman in the Fifth' starts out as a very generic thriller: a depressed Writer (and this really is a "Writer" with a capital "W", as Hollywood imagines them, intense, solitary and driven by their art) comes to Paris, where he is mysteriously chased by two beautiful strangers while having to deal with a variety of lowlifes (portayed in a way that feels quasi-racist). The eventual resolution to the mystery is more unusual, but depends on a blurring of truth and fiction which is not handled with particular skill. Director Pawel Pawlikowski is better known for the sublime, low key 'Last Resort' and 'My Summer of Love'; to be frank, he seems much less at home here in the mainstream.

edyn13 You do not often get the opportunity to see such a beautifully crafted film. This film is seamless in the way it shows you what it chooses to show you. Genius cinematography! If you compare this film to mainstream cinema, of course you are not going to be happy. This film is not mainstream and its not trying to be. The way I see it is that everything you see and hear reflects exactly what someone living with psychosis or another severe mental illness would experience. The film has many similarities to "Black Swan" in that way. The entire 90 minutes of the film you are taken on a psychotic journey. Nothing makes sense. There are glimpses of normalcy and then everything goes back to chaos with no real conclusion. The story's journey mimics what it must be like to be in the psyche of the mentally ill.The dark shots, the cloudy skies and colourless rooms are all reflections of Tom's twisted psyche. A metaphorical dark hell if you will. My guess is that Tom is actually locked up somewhere. The images on screen are really a portrayal of Tom's distorted thoughts during the past 90 minutes while he stares blankly at the white walls that surround him.