Watcher
Watcher
Starring Maika Monroe, Karl Glusman, Burn Gorman, Madalina Anea
Directed by Chloe Okuno
Starring Maika Monroe, Karl Glusman, Burn Gorman, Madalina Anea
Directed by Chloe Okuno
There was a time where I made an impulsive move to Maryland from Ohio and I literally knew one or two people there. No job, no other friends, and no family near me, I felt totally isolated and alone, and I immediately regretted my decision. Fortunately I was lucky enough to still have my job back home, and five days after moving I moved back and life has been amazing since. All that to say I have a bit of an understanding as to how Julia feels in "Watcher" - having been displaced from her life in New York to move with her husband to an entirely different country, she feels totally alone and isolated: but unlike me, she actually has something to worry about - a stalker who watches her every move...or is it all in her overactive mind?
Julia (Maika Monroe) and her husband Francis (Karl Glusman) just moved to Francis's family's homeland of Romania, and while he's fluent in Romanian, she doesn't know a word of it. Immediately she's displaced as he has conversations in Romanian without her understanding, and it immediately creates a rift between the pair. Things only escalate when Francis goes to work for long hours, leaving Julia alone in a foreign country with no friends. She traverses the cloudy city streets and notices a man (Burn Gorman) following her, and then she notices him staring at her from an apartment complex across the street. Believing she's being watched, she tries to get help from Francis, but he thinks she's overreacting due to being in a new place. She befriends her neighbor Irina (Madalina Anea) who agrees to watch out for her, but that does little to comfort Julia's growing suspicion. Is this man really watching her, or is she projecting her insecurities onto him, and in turn is she the one watching him?
"Watcher" is a collaboration of first-time director Chloe Okuno and cinematographer Benjamin Kirk Nielsen, and typically when it comes to first timers you either hit it out of the park or miss entirely: thankfully "Watcher" is the former, as it's an amazing slow-burn thriller that's rooted and grounded in reality, not offering any outlandish twists and turns to try to keep the audience interested: it accomplishes this purely on the strength of the story and the impeccable acting talent of Maika Monroe. You feel like you're a part of the story, and you feel the intensity as it progresses either in the way of Julia being right, or Julia being wrong: both of which are terrifying in their own right, and the film never lets up on that diatribe.
Maika Monroe is a unique actress - at least to me - in the fact that she disappears in her roles. Be it "Watcher" or another fantastic horror film "It Follows," she has this appearance about her that causes her to become invisible, and not in a bad way. She disappears so thoroughly that you take her spot in the film, and the terror and fear she feels is something that you feel as well. You can't help but get sucked in by her performance, because it's so natural, gritty, and realistic that you feel like you'd be doing the same things. She is in a new land, stressed out because she can't understand the language (in an inspired tactic, Okuno doesn't include subtitles when people speak Romanian, further pulling us into the story making us just as irritated as Julia is), and is utterly alone as her husband is either working all hours of the day, or he doesn't seem at all interested in her plight. When she tells him what's happening, he thinks it's because she's new to the land and is misreading the situations, which is something that happens to women who are going through stalker situations all the time. It's frustrating and infuriating, and again you feel those emotions through Monroe's spectacular performance.
The antagonist of the film is Burn Gorman's man - who's name is Daniel - and he excels at playing the creepy weirdo character due to his unique physical appearance. Nothing against the man, but if you saw him standing on a street corner, you'd be instantly creeped out. He utilizes this to his advantage here, as he hardly speaks a word, but you feel his ominous presence with his sheer appearance. Whether he's sitting behind Julia at the movie theater, watching her at the supermarket, or seeing his silhouetted outline from his apartment window, he exudes a sense of unease that permeates to your soul, but yet he also has this sort of strange innocence about him where he could just be a creepy looking guy who's not doing creepy things, but you think he is due to his creepy appearance.
To compliment this fascinating story and performances is Nielsen's cinematography, which is top-notch for a first-timer. Romania is always shown in bleak clouds and rain, giving a constant sense of sadness and depression that could fuel Julia's isolation. The camera pans back at certain moments where Julia is seen from far away, like you're the one who's being the watcher in that situation. The apartment complex gives off "Rosemary's Baby" vibes (along with Francis's lack of interest and even the elderly neighbor lady who looks a lot like the Oscar-winner actress in "Rosemary's Baby" Ruth Gordon) with its unnaturally high ceilings, close confinement hallways, and spiraling staircases that allows someone to hide in plain sight. Even their home is sterilized and bleak, with little decorations and plain white walls that give off a sense of unease even when there's no need for it. You won't forget what you see because everything technical about this is spot-on.
"Watcher" turns the tables on the watcher subgenre by Julia knowing and understanding that someone is watching her, and she sets out to not be just a victim. She follows Daniel around trying to understand where he's coming from, and in the process she switches roles and becomes the watcher herself, which is what makes the film unique: if Daniel is really an innocent person, then he's become the object of Julia's obsession, and the film doesn't necessarily take sides in that respect. Even though you're more attached to Julia's character, if you see things through an innocent Daniel's eyes, you might change your view about it - if Daniel is indeed innocent, that is. If not, then Julia is flipping the script on her stalker, giving her more power than she even thinks.
The Score: A
Julia (Maika Monroe) and her husband Francis (Karl Glusman) just moved to Francis's family's homeland of Romania, and while he's fluent in Romanian, she doesn't know a word of it. Immediately she's displaced as he has conversations in Romanian without her understanding, and it immediately creates a rift between the pair. Things only escalate when Francis goes to work for long hours, leaving Julia alone in a foreign country with no friends. She traverses the cloudy city streets and notices a man (Burn Gorman) following her, and then she notices him staring at her from an apartment complex across the street. Believing she's being watched, she tries to get help from Francis, but he thinks she's overreacting due to being in a new place. She befriends her neighbor Irina (Madalina Anea) who agrees to watch out for her, but that does little to comfort Julia's growing suspicion. Is this man really watching her, or is she projecting her insecurities onto him, and in turn is she the one watching him?
"Watcher" is a collaboration of first-time director Chloe Okuno and cinematographer Benjamin Kirk Nielsen, and typically when it comes to first timers you either hit it out of the park or miss entirely: thankfully "Watcher" is the former, as it's an amazing slow-burn thriller that's rooted and grounded in reality, not offering any outlandish twists and turns to try to keep the audience interested: it accomplishes this purely on the strength of the story and the impeccable acting talent of Maika Monroe. You feel like you're a part of the story, and you feel the intensity as it progresses either in the way of Julia being right, or Julia being wrong: both of which are terrifying in their own right, and the film never lets up on that diatribe.
Maika Monroe is a unique actress - at least to me - in the fact that she disappears in her roles. Be it "Watcher" or another fantastic horror film "It Follows," she has this appearance about her that causes her to become invisible, and not in a bad way. She disappears so thoroughly that you take her spot in the film, and the terror and fear she feels is something that you feel as well. You can't help but get sucked in by her performance, because it's so natural, gritty, and realistic that you feel like you'd be doing the same things. She is in a new land, stressed out because she can't understand the language (in an inspired tactic, Okuno doesn't include subtitles when people speak Romanian, further pulling us into the story making us just as irritated as Julia is), and is utterly alone as her husband is either working all hours of the day, or he doesn't seem at all interested in her plight. When she tells him what's happening, he thinks it's because she's new to the land and is misreading the situations, which is something that happens to women who are going through stalker situations all the time. It's frustrating and infuriating, and again you feel those emotions through Monroe's spectacular performance.
The antagonist of the film is Burn Gorman's man - who's name is Daniel - and he excels at playing the creepy weirdo character due to his unique physical appearance. Nothing against the man, but if you saw him standing on a street corner, you'd be instantly creeped out. He utilizes this to his advantage here, as he hardly speaks a word, but you feel his ominous presence with his sheer appearance. Whether he's sitting behind Julia at the movie theater, watching her at the supermarket, or seeing his silhouetted outline from his apartment window, he exudes a sense of unease that permeates to your soul, but yet he also has this sort of strange innocence about him where he could just be a creepy looking guy who's not doing creepy things, but you think he is due to his creepy appearance.
To compliment this fascinating story and performances is Nielsen's cinematography, which is top-notch for a first-timer. Romania is always shown in bleak clouds and rain, giving a constant sense of sadness and depression that could fuel Julia's isolation. The camera pans back at certain moments where Julia is seen from far away, like you're the one who's being the watcher in that situation. The apartment complex gives off "Rosemary's Baby" vibes (along with Francis's lack of interest and even the elderly neighbor lady who looks a lot like the Oscar-winner actress in "Rosemary's Baby" Ruth Gordon) with its unnaturally high ceilings, close confinement hallways, and spiraling staircases that allows someone to hide in plain sight. Even their home is sterilized and bleak, with little decorations and plain white walls that give off a sense of unease even when there's no need for it. You won't forget what you see because everything technical about this is spot-on.
"Watcher" turns the tables on the watcher subgenre by Julia knowing and understanding that someone is watching her, and she sets out to not be just a victim. She follows Daniel around trying to understand where he's coming from, and in the process she switches roles and becomes the watcher herself, which is what makes the film unique: if Daniel is really an innocent person, then he's become the object of Julia's obsession, and the film doesn't necessarily take sides in that respect. Even though you're more attached to Julia's character, if you see things through an innocent Daniel's eyes, you might change your view about it - if Daniel is indeed innocent, that is. If not, then Julia is flipping the script on her stalker, giving her more power than she even thinks.
The Score: A
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