Despite its sparkling pedigree, ‘The Woman in the Window’ is a dud of a movie

The pedigree of “The Woman in the Window” is so impressive that is looks like a no-lose proposition: In this twisty psychological thriller, based on A.J. Finn’s best-selling novel, Amy Adams plays an agoraphobic child psychologist whose voyeuristic obsession with her new neighbors leads her into an increasingly perilous labyrinth of lies and distorted identities.

Throw in a supporting cast that includes Gary Oldman, Julianne Moore and Tracy Letts - working with Letts’s own adapted screenplay and under the directorial hand of Joe Wright - and “The Woman in the Window” promises to be the kind of elegant, atmospheric, locked-room mystery that made its most obvious literary and cinematic inspirations such classics.

Indeed, Wright makes sure to toss in plenty of brief film clips from the likes of Alfred Hitchcock and Otto Preminger (“Laura”), and the shadowy Harlem townhouse that Adams pads around in would no doubt prompt Agatha Christie to poke around its most tantalizing corners. But even with all this promise, “The Woman in the Window” falls apart, devolving into tawdry body horror and tiresome, talky exposition.

Things get off to an alarmingly cliched start during the movie’s first moments, when the camera pans across a creepy doll house belonging to Anna Fox (Adams). Trapped in her gentrified Harlem pad for the past several months, Anna has spent most of the time chasing a variety of medications with copious glasses of red wine. Her therapist, played by Letts with his usual dry humor, stops by for occasional sarcastic banter with Anna, who is resolute in her inertia. That is, until the Russell family moves in across the street, and their adolescent son Ethan (Fred Hechinger) stops by for an impromptu meet-and-greet.

Something’s not quite right at the Russells, and Adams begins to study them from afar, cued by a mixture of compassion, clinical interest and garden-variety curiosity. But her addled state, exacerbated by her intake of alcohol and pills, blurs her perceptions. Is she seeing what she thinks she’s seeing? And is it as bad as it looks?

Reportedly, “The Woman in the Window” has been in progress for a few years now, rewritten and refilmed to accommodate confused test audiences. It’s now gone directly to streaming at a time when, like Anna, many of its viewers are cooped up, stir crazy and drinking more than they probably should. Had Wright brought his gift for scenesetting to bear on the story, that might have made “The Woman in the Window” at least a visual escape. Instead, he doubles down on Anna’s sepulchral interior life, making Adams look as puffy and dowdy as possible and filming her in dreary, dimly lit rooms that have all the appeal of a grimy aquarium. (Between this movie and her recent appearances in “Hillbilly Elegy” and HBO’s “Sharp Objects,” it’s past time for Adams to bring the catatonia phase of her career to a close; it has done her no favors.)

When Moore shows up in a provocative cameo, she injects a welcome jolt of destabilizing brio into the otherwise dull proceedings; Oldman, for his part, is criminally underused. The cinematic references of the original novel here are telegraphed in quick clips, which feels like a missed opportunity for the visual style Wright brought to such films as “Atonement” and “Anna Karenina”; a late scene of magical realism is perfunctory and tonally out of place.

“The Woman in the Window” is the kind of film that could go places, but sadly never manages to get out the door. - - One and one-half stars. Rated R. Available on Netflix. Contains violence and strong language. 101 minutes.

Ratings Guide: Four stars masterpiece, three stars very good, two stars OK, one star poor, no stars waste of time.