It’s been forty two years since the death of legendary master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock, but his influence lives on the a new generation of filmmakers. The recently released Watcher, ably directed by Chloe Okuno, is another thriller with a Hitchcockian flair. Julia (Maika Monroe) moves to Bucharest with her husband Francis (Karl Glusman), who’s been transferred to the Romanian office by his company. Francis speaks Romanian fluently, having been raised by a Romanian mother, but Julia--who’s still trying to learn the language--is lost at sea.
Okuno makes a point of not translating any of the Romanian that’s spoken in the film, making us feel Julia’s isolation and frustration at being left out of conversations and life in general. But life gets even harder for Julia when she starts seeing a shadowy figure watching her from one of the windows in the apartment building across the street. Soon, she starts seeing a strange man who appears to be following her wherever she goes. It doesn’t ease Julia’s suspicion any when she further hears that there’s a serial killer on the lose in Bucharest, a killer known as the Spider, who cuts off the heads of his female victims.
But is Julia really being stalked by a killer? Or is her paranoia just a figment of her imagination? This is a perfect Hitchcock moment, where a normal person finds themselves in an abnormal and crazy situation. Maika Monroe, who was so good in David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows and Neil Jordan’s Greta, really shines here as Julia. She plays the paranoia without becoming too overwrought, which keeps the viewer in her corner throughout the film. The viewer stays on her side also because Monroe also does a good job at revealing Julia’s inner strength and tenacity through such a trying time.
Okuna directs this film with such aplomb that I wanted to see it again right after I saw it. She uses the apartment’s own architecture to frame shots, deftly creating a closed in, claustrophobic feel to the proceedings, which mainly take place in Francis and Julia’s abode. Watcher was a pleasant surprise for me, because I was honestly not expecting much--at least beyond the usual good performance from Monroe. But Watcher is such a good movie overall that it’s a real keeper.
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