Thanks once again to Universal Pictures Home Entertainment for shipping me a review Blu-ray copy of THE WOMAN IN THE YARD!
This has been a good way to catch up on movies I missed in the theaters. The teaser for this movie sucked me in right away because it's simple: a family living at a farm house, with no neighbors as far as the eye can see and almost as far as the foot can walk...but then they see a creepy veiled woman, dressed in all black, sitting at the end of the driveway.
There's the thinnest veneer of civility in our daily lives. All it takes to send us into paranoid or hostile spirals is one uninvited person approaching our space. Shit, we really are just animals, aren't we?
Now imagine this person carries herself with the kind of calm yet firm demeanor reserved only for folks who know they can back up what they say. They can overpower you at any time and the only reason this movie doesn't end in five minutes is strictly due to the fact that they're not just here to rob or pillage or fight. There's something deeper going on.
This Woman (Okwui Okpokwasali) is here for Ramona (Danielle Deadwyler). She's the matriarch of a young family: young teen Taylor (Peyton Jackson) and elementary-aged Annie (Estella Kahiha). Ramona's husband has just died in a car accident; the movie starts with her getting around on crutches.
Taylor's trying to be the man of the house with the limited resources a 14-year-old has: no groceries, no license, no electricity. Bills pile up; Ramona lies in bed, rotting in her own mind. It's within this scenario the Woman arrives, revealing she knows more about Ramona and her family than any stranger ever should.
The movie plays out like a wind-up toy, setting up all the necessary pieces and letting the tension play out, watching Ramona and the kids try to figure a method of escape or deterrence. As the Woman grows closer, almost at the pace of shadows cast by a gliding Sun, secrets are revealed and Ramona's state of mind continues to warp, influenced by the Woman's otherworldly presence. Collet-Serra crafts genre set pieces that work as metaphors for Ramona's deteriorating mental illness, though leave me focused more so on how this works within the movie's world rather than how Ramona's mind is reflected within these scares.
I've always appreciated Deadwyler's gusto in pursuing a wide variety of projects (this to I SAW THE TV GLOW to THE PIANO LESSON, TILL and the upcoming siege thriller 40 ACRES carves a wide swath). She plays so much internal strife within her eyes and expressions; there's a woman who's fighting not only to survive, but also stave off this nagging reminder that she never wanted this kind of life. This isn't the plan she had for herself. It's hard not to wallow in self-pity. Deadwyler carries all of this in a way that never feels maudlin, always relatable.
The movie doesn't overstay its welcome, coming in at a breezy 88 minutes. Some sci-fi elements threaten to overstuff the story and I wish they'd been developed more throughout the movie rather than explained within the climax. Regardless, the movie, much like most of Collet-Serra's filmography sits at a comfortable 5-6 out of 10, perfect for a lazy Saturday afternoon.
The Blu-ray release? I can't understand why I'd pick up a "Collector's Edition" without so much as a commentary. The two featurettes into the making of the movie and design of the Woman are nice, but in 2025, falls below the standard for home video ownership.
Streaming's already made Blu-rays rarer and more expensive; this sparse set of bonus features wouldn't make me feel any better about dropping $20 for the disc. It shouldn't entice you to do the same.
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