We first meet the protagonist at a turning point in his life. Tom Ricks (Ethan Hawke) recently lost a job at a University in America. He has not been able to finish his second novel for years, even though the first one was enthusiastically received. His wife (Delphine Chuillot) abandoned him and left for France together with their daughter. Tom travels to Paris in order to reunite with his family. He wants to write a book, see his daughter, and, with time, get back on track. However, his plan comes across complications: his wife threatens him with the police, he has his luggage stolen on the bus. The writer winds up at a shady hotel in the outskirts. This is where he meets suspicious businessmen from Turkey and a Polish receptionist (Joanna Kulig). Soon, he will also come across the titular woman from the fifth district, who comes from the south and is the widow of a Hungarian writer.
The Woman in the Fifth escapes easy classification. “It is a multifaceted story […], which should not be analysed, but felt”, the director said, adding that “the spectator ought to put the rational part of the brain on hold and experience this film, like music.” Pawlikowski's film, suspended between reality and morbid hallucination, is a story about a man who is lost and broken inside.
When transferring Douglas Kennedy's novel to the screen, Pawlikowski shifted the points of emphasis. Instead of conducting a detective plot, he created a story in which “the protagonist is the main problem and his own enemy.” “I wanted to tell a story of a crumbling man facing an internal conflict. Of a man […] who wants to be an artist, be loved, who wants to be a husband and a father. Meanwhile, he is unable to accomplish anything. And he cannot make up his mind about anything.”
The Woman in the Fifth, just like The Tenant and other French productions by Roman Polański, shows the world of the protagonist decaying before our eyes. “This is not a naturalist story. I would rather call it a distorting mirror.” When looking into it, the protagonist becomes lost in his own fantasies, objects of imagination, and obsessions, while he finds solace in women.
The new film from the author of My Summer of Love tells a story of confused masculinity and soothing femininity. In Pawlikowski's films, women are the symbol of a desired order. The wife who left years ago is a synonym of paradise lost. The mysterious femme fatale, an elusive and seductive woman, played by Kristin Scott Thomas, on one hand provides Tom with a sense of fetishistic fulfilment, and on the other – supports him in his writing efforts. The warm and caring waitress (Joanna Kulig) from the neglected hotel is also a safe haven to him. In Pawlikowski's film, women turn out to be an illusory refuge for weaker men, and at the same time a reflection of cultural clichés formed by the patriarchal society.