Watcher (2022)

By: Mike Ward on Sunday, June 05

R Running Time: 96 mins

SHOULD I SEE IT?

YES

A nice throwback thriller, with some subtle and timely social commentary added to the mix.
In her feature-length debut, writer/director Chloe Okuno shows adept skill at setting tone and atmosphere, and steering us through formula and familiarity to deliver a pretty captivating movie experience.
We simply don’t appreciate Maika Monroe enough.

NO

Though it embraces the tropes and formulaic nature of the premise, Watcher may come off as derivative of other films with a similar tone and feel.
As great as Maika Monroe is here, I wish she had a stronger acting partner than Karl Glusman, who comes off listless and dull opposite her.
Grim, though with only fleeting moments of violent content, for anyone stalked, pursued, or victimized previously, Watcher may prive to be a difficult film to watch.

OUR REVIEW

Lost in Bucharest, a young woman struggles to acclimate to a new life as her husband takes on a new job in the slick and effective Watcher, a solid debut feature from writer/director Chloe Okuno.

Much of this effective suspense/thriller plays familiar. We have nods and winks to Rear Window, Someone to Watch Over Me, It Follows, a splash of Halloween, a spritz of 1990s erotic thriller seediness, and a story where a woman gets the very real sense that she is being watched and followed nearly every moment she is left alone.

Julia (Maika Monroe) finds herself alone a lot. As husband Francis (Karl Glusman) works from early in the morning to late into the evening, Julia is left to find her way around a city she cannot fully comprehend. Okuno frames many early scenes without subtitles, leaving her effectively lost in translation and quickly engulfed in a city where she finds herself all alone.

Heightened by a spooky score from Nathan Halpern, Julia is often left in her spacious new apartment and randomly looks out their big picture window. Quickly, she locks eyes with a man in a window staring right back at her (Burn Gorman). Unsettled, she averts her gaze until it happens again on another day. And then again.

Trying to find something, anything to do, Julia begins to believe she is being followed by the man from the window. With news that a serial killer, known as “The Spider,” may have claimed several victims in the previous months, Julia becomes equally obsessed and frightened by the prospects of the curious neighbor across the complex.

Okuno, adapting a previous screenplay by Zack Ford, knows exactly how to ramp up the intensity and have some fun with the stalker movie formula. There is a cleverness in how she plays with the title, juxtaposing the watcher and proverbial “watchee,” in ways which leave us wondering if we have an unreliable narrator or a truly frightening set of circumstances unfolding for Julia.

Watcher is structured efficiently, and the film feels plausible, even though a couple scenes stretch our suspension of disbelief. Yet even if we think we know what’s happening, Okuno keeps us guessing. Adding to Julia’s discontent, Francis seems concerned, but defaults to excuses and gaslighting as a means to try and keep Julia calm. At one point, he even questions just who is watching whom.

Monroe is such an underrated talent, skilled at conveying tense, palpable emotions in films like these. Julia is not merely some meek or timid little woman lost in the city. She is resourceful, steadfast, and desperately trying to not unravel in a place that owes her no favors and is as foreign to her as she appears to those she tries to talk and reason with.

Glusman is sadly a blank slate here. Perhaps, the film’s largest misstep is how it fails to allow the actors to generate the chemistry necessary for us to believe that Julia would want to uproot her life in New York to live in Bucharest. A better build of their relationship would allow us to better understand the inevitable conflicts which arise as Julia begins to spiral into fear and uncertainty.

In the end, Okuno has visions for more than just a pulpy, stalker flick. She delivers a film which speaks to vulnerability, fear, and the struggles women experience in simply trying to be heard in all aspects of their daily lives. Watcher infuses those doses of reality within a suspense/thriller formula we may have seen before. Okuno’s skills and instincts as a filmmaker are so good though, and Monroe such a convincing actor, we are left as the “watchers,” with bated breath, wondering how all of this will be resolved.

CAST & CREW

Starring: Maika Monroe, Karl Glusman, Burn Gorman, Madalina Anea, Gabriela Butuc, Daniel Nuta, Flaviu Crisan, Florian Ghimpu

Director: Chloe Okuno
Written for the screen by Chloe Okuno
Based on the screenplay by Zack Ford
Release Date: June 3, 2022
IFC Midnight/IFC Films

A nice throwback thriller, with some subtle and timely social commentary added to the mix.

In her feature-length debut, writer/director Chloe Okuno shows adept skill at setting tone and atmosphere, and steering us through formula and familiarity to deliver a pretty captivating movie experience.

We simply don’t appreciate Maika Monroe enough.

Though it embraces the tropes and formulaic nature of the premise, Watcher may come off as derivative of other films with a similar tone and feel.

As great as Maika Monroe is here, I wish she had a stronger acting partner than Karl Glusman, who comes off listless and dull opposite her.

Grim, though with only fleeting moments of violent content, for anyone stalked, pursued, or victimized previously, Watcher may prive to be a difficult film to watch.