Watcher: NZIFF Review

Gaslighting, stalking, paranoia, a serial killer and Romania all combine for director Chloe Okuno's stunning thriller Watcher, starring It Follows' Maika Monroe.

Monroe is Julia, a young American wife who relocates to Bucharest with her Romanian-speaking husband for his new job. Overwhelmed by a new city, and illiterate in the new language, Julia soon begins to feel alienated despite her best attempts. 

It's a feeling further heightened by the fact she spies someone spying on her from the building opposite her own. Her paranoia's soon increased by news of a serial killer who beheads their victims in her neighbourhood and a series of incidents where she appears to be followed.

Dismissed by her husband as overreacting, Julia soon finds herself in an escalating situation both of her own making and of her circumstance.

Watcher is a thrillingly taut movie that takes its time to breathe, and gives its story space to settle in.

It's anchored by the uneasy performance of Monroe as Julia, a woman seemingly unravelling, in an aesthetic of unease. With elements of Rear Window and the recent Prime Video flick The Voyeurs, Watcher flips the expected on its head to brilliantly compelling effect.

The opening sequences see the camera pulling out through the window, switching from the pair making love to an unnerving feeling of voyeurism - but not once does Watcher ever become sleazy. Okuno's desire to give the movie space to breathe and the doubts to take root proves to be fertile fruit for flipping the narrative as Julia first becomes the watched, then the watcher. And that's not with even mentioning the gaslighting going on throughout, and a subtle takedown of both male behaviour and authority figures.

Throw in a couple of well-orchestrated scares, and Watcher becomes a deeply unsettling psychological thriller that's one of the essential films of the 2022 Film Festival.