Women Behaving Badly

The massive success of Netflix’s Bird Box suggests an auspicious future for fans of female-directed thrillers—and their emotionally rich heroes

- Mary Kaye Schilling

IN 1953, THE ACTRESS IDA LUPINO directed The Hitch-Hiker, a hard little nut of a film—the first noir directed by a woman. Twenty-five years later, Lina Wertmüller’s art house thriller Blood Feud pushed the grieving widow—a distinctly unglamorous Sophia Loren—from the hand-wringing shadows into a position of fierce retribution.

Female directors are rare, but those directing thrillers remain rarer still. Kathryn Bigelow opened the door a crack more with her 1991 cult classic Point Break. Mary Harron’s gleefully deranged American Psycho followed in 2000. But both films featured men in the leading roles. Traction for Wertmüller’s groundbreaking choice—placing female avengers front and center—took a lot longer. Highlights include Jane Campion’s 2003 film In the Cut, Debra Granik’s 2010 Oscar winner Winter’s Bone and Claire Denis’s 2013 Bastards.

This past December, Netflix released Bird Box, from the Danish director Susanne Bier and starring Sandra Bullock. It quickly broke records for the streaming service, becoming the most watched film in a seven-day period. On January 18, Netflix’s Close debuts, from British director Vicky Jewson, and starring Noomi Rapace as a bodyguard assigned to protect a billionaire’s troubled daughter (Sophie Nélisse of The Book Thief). What both thrillers demonstrate (in addition to Netflix’s commitment to hiring diverse creators) are the singular qualities women bring to the genre—among them a willingness to subvert traditional tropes, and to feature distinctly nuanced female characters, well beyond the usual bunny-boiling nut jobs, oversexed psychopaths and victimized wives and girlfriends common to the genre.