The Woman in the Window

After sending his wife and two children on vacation, Richard Wanley heads to the club to meet friends. He reflects on his ordinary life and the quiet tension beneath the surface. This calm setup introduces his routine before the night's events spiral out of control.

At the club, Wanley stops before a striking portrait of Alice Reed in a storefront window and discusses it with friends. Reed herself is nearby, watching the people gaze at the painting. Intrigued, she engages him and invites him for drinks.

Reed persuades Wanley to join her for drinks, initiating an intimate encounter that departs from casual acquaintance. The invitation feels sudden yet alluring, drawing Wanley toward an unstable new connection. The night deepens as the two become more entangled.

An unexpected visit from Mazard escalates into a fight at Reed's home. Wanley kills Mazard in self-defense, his actions setting in motion a dangerous cover-up. The decision to hide the crime binds him to Reed and to a perilous lie.

Wanley and Reed conspire to conceal the murder, and Wanley disposes of Mazard's body in the countryside. The pair drain the resources of their lie as they mismanage the evidence and overlook the growing risk. Their plan starts to unravel as clues mount.

With the investigation underway, Wanley slips and says things that imply knowledge he should not reveal. Several witnesses and stray clues begin pointing to him, complicating any attempt at plausible deniability. The tension rises as the net tightens.

Wanley's club friend, district attorney Frank Lalor, gets involved in the investigation and invites Wanley back to the crime scene as a friend rather than a suspect. The relationship muddles boundaries and heightens Wanley's paranoia about being discovered. The dynamic adds a personal dimension to the procedural nightmare.

Heidt, a crooked ex-cop, follows Mazard and begins extorting Reed. Wanley and Reed discuss a plan to kill Heidt, contemplating drastic means to avoid exposure. Reed tries to maintain control while Heidt presses for payment and a getaway.

Reed tells Wanley that Heidt's extortion attempt has failed, prompting Wanley to overdose on the remaining prescription powder in a suicide attempt. The moment underscores the fragility of their scheme and drives the narrative toward its climactic turn.

Heidt is killed in a shootout immediately after leaving Reed's home, and the police quickly assume Heidt was Mazard's killer. The misdirection compounds the tension and ensures Reed's fear of exposure grows. The case takes a twist that pushes Wanley toward a desperate endgame.

Reed learns that the police have killed Heidt and rushes to Wanley's location to call him. Wanley is found slumped over in his chair, apparently dead, amid the unraveling events. The scene sets up the dream reveal that follows.

In a match cut, Wanley wakes up back at his club and realizes that the entire sequence was a dream. The employees from the club are revealed as the main characters, flipping the night into a surreal false reality. The twist reframes the entire narrative as a dream logic exercise.

Now awake to the dream's unreality, Wanley steps out onto the street in front of the painting. A woman asks for a light, but he refuses and bolts away. The close of the film leaves his fate uncertain and emphasizes the dream's hold on him.