Written and directed by Curtis Hanson
A cocksure act has consequences in Curtis Hanson’s The Bedroom Window, as one man’s decision to commit perjury puts him and his lover in the sights of a serial killer.
Terry Lambert is a womanizer. We know so, since the opening credits see him tidy his bedroom and hide a brassiere before opening the door to his latest conquest: the wife of his boss. They do what adulterers do, but later, after disentangling from each other’s arms, the woman goes to the window wherefrom she witnesses a sexual assault. Terry’s lover gets a good look at the assailant before he scampers, but here’s the dilemma: if she goes to the police to give testimony, how will she explain she was in the bedroom of her husband’s employee when she spotted the suspect?
Terry, giddy with excitement over what he’s already getting away with, offers to pretend it was him who saw the whole thing, and armed with rough facts of the encounter, calls the police. It marks the start of a twisty cat-and-mouse game where cops grow suspicious of Terry, Terry gets obsessed with the suspect, and the suspect starts to piece together who the prosecution’s key witness is….
The Bedroom Window is suspenseful and oftentimes silly, in large part because of Steve Guttenberg’s performance as Terry, where he plays this grown man with the witless enthusiasm of a boy. It’s tense watching an office worker stalk someone he thinks to be a killer, but it’s also exciting because he has no reason to be doing it, nor any reason to be good at it. There’s something exhilarating about an amateur sleuth, about people dealing with things beyond their comprehension.
While Guttenberg’s amusing, Isabelle Huppert delivers a rare dud as Terry’s lover Sylvia. Perhaps a little uncomfortable outside of her French mother tongue, she’s stiff and strangely aloof, as if she’s not all that invested in her performance as a manipulating high society woman.
Fully committed as the suspect is Brad Greenquist, however, who dials into his role as a creepy shipyard worker. Silent, stone-faced, with eyes leering above his jowls, Greenquist recalls early cinema’s monsters but infuses it with the sexual threat of a psychotic pervert. I’d think him capable of heinous acts even without an initial reason to suspect him.
The Bedroom Window is devoted to both suspense and sexiness, if mostly the former. Hanson’s insistence that things remain a little steamy forces an unwieldy coupling that feels awfully contrived and later gives rise to a very goofy scene wherein a sexily clad woman writhes around a dive bar trying to provoke a reaction from the leering barflies. The entertainment factor redeems it, though.
Despite what it devolves into, The Bedroom Window lures you in with its dilemma: What would you do in Sylvia and Terry’s shoes? Would you risk more lives being put in danger because you dared not reveal your infidelity? Or would you aid an investigation knowing you’d be found out as a cheater? Morality goes on this popcorn thriller like butter, adding a touch of flavor to what’s otherwise merely an entertaining, tense, and sexy run-around.
Mikkel Frederiksen 