Watcher wants you to believe your eyes—and then judges you for it
Maika Monroe stars in a thriller that uses language and cultural barriers as battle-of-the-sexes metaphors
Film Reviews Watcher
On its face, Watcher is a fairly conventional narrative about a woman and a possible stalker in the apartment across the road. But director Chloe Okuno has more on her mind than Repulsion-like “woman alone going crazy” vibes, or even Rear Window’s audience-indicting voyeurism. Okuno is more concerned with one simple message: believe women. Her heroine Julia (Maika Monroe) never doubts her suspicions and fears, and never has to, because every man around her is there to do that for her. The differences between how men and women perceive threats are always forefront in Okuno’s narrative, a (mis-)understanding gap she literalizes by relocating the American Julia to Bucharest, where her inexperience with the Romanian surroundings reiterates the differences in the metaphorical languages spoken by the sexes.
Julia is there thanks to her Romanian-American husband, Francis (Karl Glusman), whose bilingual skills just scored him a big job in the country’s capital. He has to translate for her; she in turn must trust that the few locals who do speak some English mean her no harm. But when a serial killer of young women strikes the area, it’s easy for her to see danger everywhere. Especially when a shadowy figure in the neighboring building keeps staring into their apartment window every night.
When Julia and Francis first enter their new place, it’s at night, the main light doesn’t work, and it looks a dingy beige. Come morning, in full light of day, everything’s a clean white. It’s an easy visual shorthand for how ridiculous nighttime fears may seem once exposed to sunlight. And indeed, for a while we simply see Julia hang around the apartment, or walk around town. A viewer might imagine that this was simply a convenient, low-budget way to make a movie, by just filming one actress alone in an Airbnb.
But a couple of shots that pull back and out from the living-room window suggest something more is up. For a moment, our point of view is that of a watcher, if not necessarily the precise one of the title. Monroe, with her classic beauty and platinum blonde hair, is the sort of actress people like to watch onscreen, whether she’s not doing much of anything significant, or having jeans-on sex with Francis on the couch. It’s okay, because she’s an actress in a movie, and watching is what we’re meant to do. But what if she weren’t, yet a voyeur wholeheartedly believed otherwise?
After some tense near-encounters with a fellow (Burn Gorman) who uncomfortably resembles the shape in the window, Julia makes the bad decision to secretly follow him, hoping to learn more in order to confirm her suspicions. Audiences who like to yell at characters in horror movies will have ample opportunity to do so. But when the story later makes clear that none of her missteps likely changed the course of events, Okuno seizes upon those revelations to critique the audience for blaming the victim. When Julia’s English-speaking neighbor Irina (Madalina Anea), who conveniently keeps Chekhov’s gun in her coffee table, advises that “having to live with the uncertainty” is the best-case treatment for paranoia, it sounds like good therapy. But a movie on Shudder is not going to let anyone do that.
Gorman, recently seen as the not-Charlie Day scientist in the Pacific Rim movies and a fascist villain on Paramount+’s Halo, often plays characters so cheesy they deserve their own Arby’s sandwich. Here, his unusual appearance—funny lookin’ in a general sort of a way, as the characters in Fargo might say—does most of the work, as the actor remains very still and mostly silent. There’s no wasted movement there, and as such, no signals to safely interpret regarding his intentions. It’s not like the movie offers up any other major suspects, but the man’s intense eyes, relative short stature and withdrawn nature manage to communicate both a threat to women and a lack of danger to bigger dudes who might think they could easily kick his ass.
While the movie at first inconsistently uses creepy soundscapes sporadically, eliciting suspense when all is quiet, that choice eventually makes sense too. Nobody can be worried 24-7 and stay sane, and some moments get creepier than others. Eventually, the camera makes sure that we share Julia’s sense of when she’s being watched, to the point that we don’t doubt it when it exposes what there is to fear.
Without spoiling, this is one movie where it’d be extremely interesting to know what happens five minutes after the final scene. But while the subsequent events may be up for vigorous debate, the film’s message is crystal clear: Screw you if you ever doubted a woman afraid for her safety. Here’s hoping it sticks.
40 Comments
So now women are incapable of lying?
They should make a movie where a woman is stalked by a transwoman. Then, not only will nobody believe her, they’ll call her a hateful bigot for trying to protect herself.
I think Netflix just did a comedy special about that… you seem like you’d love it.
I’ve been needing a way to explain to my white, straight male friend why women and POC might view him with skepticism (when they lack other information about him), despite the fact that he’s a good guy. He’s been sort of pouting about it a lot lately, and I’m having trouble putting together an explanation that is kind and aknowledges his feelings, while also helping him to understand what women and POC are up against as far as having no help from mthe system and having to sort of assess every moment of our lives. Any suggestions? He’s a geniune person, I wouldn’t bother if he weren’t.
You both sound exhausting.
Gee, thanks for your help.
I used to get weirded out. Walking down the street at night, woman crosses obviously to avoid me. Walk into a conversation in Spanish that suddenly turns into guarded, carefully worded English. That sort of thing.I had to accept that while I, personally, did not do anything to these people – it doesn’t mean that the next interaction they have with someone else is going to go well. It’s not out of the realm of common sense for a single pedestrian to avoid a larger pedestrian after dark on a relatively deserted street. Most of my Spanish-speaking friends have stories of being threatened for “talking shit” when all they did was continue talking about their lunch in a language a random person didn’t understand.Unfortunately the defensiveness breeds hostile defensiveness breeds ugly outcomes. Just have to tell them not to take it personally. Right now, the ‘conservative right’ are doing everything in their power to keep what they feel is their ‘rightful’ power. That group is overwhelmingly white, and many of their adherents are openly swearing violence against those that disagree with them. It benefits them in every single way to paint every white person with their brush, much the better to drive the wedges deeper. Getting defensive about the results of their propaganda isn’t going to help.
If it makes you feel any less guilt-ridden, you, as a white person, are considerably more likely to be physically attacked by a member of an ethnic minority than a member of an ethnic minority is to be attacked by a white person. It’s not even close.
Your description above reminded me of living in Boston. I did graduate courses at night, and when I’d get home, the only store that was open was a decent-sized walk away from my apartment. And invariably on the walk home I’d wind up walking behind some young white woman who’d start acting as if I was Jason Voorhees, even if I was half a block or more away, and not paying her any attention at all. Where I’m from, we’re taught to cross the street when we sense trouble, but I guess in Boston they just teach you to stay on the same sidewalk while continuously looking over shoulder, acting more and more panicked. And eventually I’d be the one jaywalking my tired ass and heavy groceries across the street to set her mind at ease, until the next time a young white woman crossed my path and decided that a not-terribly-threatening-looking Hispanic man with his arms full of groceries walking on the same side of the street as her was a mortal threat, and the cycle would repeat. And while you try not to get defensive about other people’s perception of danger, theoretically at least shaped by their experiences and not just their prejudice, I always had to worry that their panic would end with me getting maced, or them raising an alarm and getting me stomped by helpful frat boys or the police, all for the crime of walking home, minding my own damn business.
That’s the basic example that I give him, walking alone at night, and having to assess everything all the time. I’m sort of annoyed that I even have to explain it, especially given how shitty things have become for most of us who are not like him. But I think many of us have been in his shoes, and that’s why I want to keep it positive and kind. You’re absolutely right about not taking it personally.
And the “progressive left” is doing everything in its power to antagonize white males and throw them into the arms of the wacko right, which further radicalizes them.
Young white males are being judged as if they were guilty of the crimes white males from decades and centuries past did. Naturally, that pisses them off and their anger makes them fertile ground for extreme ideologies to take root in, which are met by even more hostility and extremism from the other side, ad infinitum, further dividing and polarizing society.
I’m of your friend’s particular tribe (and middle-aged to boot!) and I would say that if he’s as genuine as you believe, he needs to just suck it up. I have been criticized as an ally and it sucks. It’s hard to not feel defensive. Oh well! As long as the criticisms don’t turn into outright antagonism, there’s not much to do. My best advice is to make sure he understands to not fight it. Some people won’t trust or like him. Again: oh well! What can ya do, we look like the oppressors!That said, if you know anyone who IS antagonizing him, maybe have a word and ask them to drop it. You might not be able to change their mind but you can maybe avoid conflict. I’m a believer in calling people out, even if they’re allies. We can always do better. But there’s a point at which it becomes counterproductive infighting.
Would offering some reading be helpful? I find this stuff is easier to process when I, well, process it. Oftentimes the conversation is less productive than the thinking that comes after. It’s like therapy. No one’s going to make a major life change sitting there on the couch. It’s a matter of stewing over it in parts, then the next time an interaction goes whatever way, your brain makes a connection to something that was said six months ago. People change, they just don’t do it on a convenient timeframe. I would say teach to the extent it makes sense for you, but remember change is his responsibility, not yours.
https://www.tiktok.com/@cyzeyesboudoir/video/7084069820978695470?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1&lang=en
This is perhaps the best argument I have ever seen. Show it to your friend.
That is exactly what I was looking for, thank you.
Is he thick? Or just so completely self absorbed that he has no idea of the discourse that’s been happening over the last several years.If he’s “pouting” about it and can’t figure it out on his own (caring enough to do the most simplistic of research might yield some answers), I submit that he’s perhaps not the “good guy” you suggest he is.
He’s done stuff in his life that suggests to me real sincerety. Because of it, I was legit suprised by this blind spot. I’m hoping it’s just going to take some time to learn to let it go.
let him mope about it, it also sounds like he’s not making you feel very safe either, and maybe proving your point that you do have to assess every situation if even someone you care about is doubting your very legitimate fears (fears not just about physical safety, but the costs of your emotional safety too).
Heh heh. Your friend isn’t crazy-just ignorant.
If he wasn’t a white male you would see it as a very open case of racist and sexist prejudice. Imagine if people didn’t trust him because he was a black woman.
Burn Gorman was good on Torchwood, eventually he made me pull for his character despite being kind of overtly off-putting in much the same way the show was
Don’t forget, that character is literally a serial rapist.
He was problematic, again I think in much the same way the show itself was
I’ve forgotten so much about torchwood. He was a rapist? I remember he was a jerk, but a rapist?
He would use an alien musk to make him irresistible to women and men both, then hit on couples they’d not be able to fight their chemically-induced attraction to him.
It look the choice away from both the women and the men, though the series saw it as “Hey, here’s a sexy musk I bet you wish you had! It makes women and straight guys want to fuck you!”
In the very first episode he uses an alien perfume that immediately makes people want to have sex with you and he uses it on people who’ve rejected him at a bar.
Ah, got it. I remember a lot of torchwood being weird, but I haven’t seen it for a long time and seem to have intentionally forgotten most of it. I mainly only remember that children of earth miniseries, since that was significantly better than the first two seasons in every way possible.
He was also good on FOREVER, that short-lived series starring Ioan Gruffudd as a doctor who’s been around since the 18th Century and every time he dies comes back to life naked in in the Hudson River. Gorman was another immortal, the first our lead had ever met, and he was kind of a sociopath….
Is THAT the face of a sociopath…?
As an actor, you have to work with what you’ve got and, as the review states, his features tend to imply something unsettled and intense. Besides the creepy doctor on Torchwood, his biggest big-budget roles are- the mutinous criminal who kills Commander Mormont on GOT,-the creepy assistant who is the liaison between Bane and the evil CEO Daggett in Dark Knight Rises and- the tweedy British officer oppressing American civilians on the AMC series Turn.
He was also great as fascist corporate security stooge Murtry in The Expanse. It’s funny, when I was reading Cibola Burn I actually pictured Murtry as Burn Gorman, and then they went ahead and cast him in the role!
The collaborator with the fascist USNC in Halo… the evil immortal in Forever…
Burn Gorman always looks to me like a live action Homestar Runner.
Gorman is also stealing the show along with Matthew Goode in The Offer.
Don’t you judge me, you “Mr. Gropey-hands” there you!
Ehhhhhhh….. I dunno about that read on Rear Window. Maybe it’s the semantics of “indicting” rubbing me wrong. (As in you used it correctly but I am resistant.) If the movie can be said to indict the audience, I see it as a mild rebuke. Let’s not forget that without the voyeurism Miss Lonely Hearts might have gone wrong. I think there’s as much fondness for the daily dramas and our inability to look away as there is criticism. It’s one of the reasons I love Rear Window. It’s as much about the ties of community as it is voyeurism.
Nevermind.
I will hear no besmirching of Burn Gorman. He has always been an engaging presence, and now is one of the standouts in a sea of great performances on The Offer. Respect.
The percent of people who are scared of getting murdered by some creep is much, much higher than the percent of people who actually end up getting murdered, so somebody has to be wrong. Most somebodies, in fact.I mean I’m afraid of sharks, but that doesn’t mean I’m likely to get bitten/eaten when I swim in the ocean. And if I did get bit, I wouldn’t go around saying “I knew I was right to be scared! You people telling me I was paranoid are to blame!”People are *terrible* at risk assessment. Just look at the investment of time/energy/money/lives in the “War on Terror,” meanwhile the death toll from preventable/treatable disease is much, much higher, or car accidents, or gun violence. We, collectively, worry far too much about incredibly unlikely events, and far to little about clear and present dangers.So no, I don’t put a lot of stock in anyone’s “intuition” that they’re in danger, and the fact that someone had to make up a story to try to drive the point home just doesn’t sell it for me. Especially when the more evidence (i.e., video) the main character came up with, the less she was believed. It was ridiculous.
“Believing (anyone) no matter what” is a wrong message, regardless
of their sex, gender, race, or whatever position on the oppression
scale they’re on. Believing people without proof is like going back to
the middle ages. It’s undoing hundreds of years of progress in
democracy, civil rights and rule of law. It’s abandoning the principle of “innocent until proven guilty”.
And it’s only going to make society worse.
There
are women with mental issues that make them paranoid. Just like there
are men with mental issues that make them paranoid. And there’s movies of men being perceived as paranoid and then actually being
right. But people don’t extract a Believe Men political take out of
those.
If the people pushing for this Believe
Women message actually cared about equality they’d be judging this movie
like they have all the ones with male protagonists. Instead they’re
just basically arguing women are perfect beings incapable of lying, deceiving or just being wrong about the way they perceive reality, which is a
supremacist view and as abhorrent as the rest of them. It only further
divides society by taking sides and placing blame just based on sex –
which very much fits under the definition of sexism.
I actually liked the movie, but after finding out it’s trying to push a rotten political mantra that’s quickly undoing decades and centuries of progress, ending equality before the law, pitting people against each other, etc, I now have a rather low view of it.
Sure you can ‘critique the audience for blaming the victim’ but it’s hardly playing fair when you’ve spent the whole film planting seeds of doubt in their minds. Characters aside, the only reason the audience ever disbelieves Julia is because the film asks us to do exactly that. For most of the running time, the game is, ‘Who is the watcher? Who is being watched?’ but if the review is right we’re then being told off for playing along. Like, how dare we be sucked into thinking it might be a Lynchian, Polanski-esque nightmare. In fact it’s a public service announcement.