Imagine moving to a country where you do not speak the language of most of the people you interact with. Imagine that your significant other is barely home due to their job and you often find yourself alone all day and into the evenings. This in itself would be enough to make one stir crazy. But add to this the fact that there is a series of killings taking place where the victims are young women who are having their throats slit. And that a neighbor across the way is always looking into your window, watching your every move. You could see yourself quickly going from stir crazy to just plain crazy. This is the situation that Julia finds herself in.
Julia is played by our Suspense Queen Maika Monroe. And she is going into a slow decent of madness, played out beautifully by director Chloe Okuno. Okuno establishes a baseline mood and like a candle, lets it slowly burn a little bit at a time.
The story begins with Julia moving to Bucharest for her husband's work. He is just trying to get ahead at work and doesn't have time for his wife's delusions and fantasies when she reports a strange man sitting behind her at the movie theatre and then following her to the supermarket. The husband borders on being sympathetic but realistic. As a result, Julia feels very alone in this which only heightens her paranoia. This causes a bit of gaslighting although as an audience one begins to wonder if maybe she is being a bit dramatic. After all, she has no hardcore proof that she is in danger or that she is being stalked. It could all be in her mind.
It is this doubt that makes the movie work so well. You don't know whether to believe. This film plays very much like a Hitchcockian thriller and the mood that is established creates suspense in places one wouldn't think there would be any. Originally the film was supposed to be set in New York City, but I think the change to taking place in Romania where there is the unsettlement of being in a foreign country adds another layer to the proceedings.
Monroe has gotten good at playing these sorts of roles of the victim that no one believes. She makes you doubt whether what is happening is really happening or is it all in her mind. Karl Glusman plays her husband who wants to be supportive but isn't quite sure if she isn't going mad. Burn Gorman plays the neighbor to such a degree of creepiness that in a scene when he shakes Julia's hand, I felt I needed to wash my hands.
Many people will be satisfied with the ending, no doubt. One wonders though at what might have been if the filmmakers had elected to go another route with it. There were lots of interesting possibilities and it felt as though they took the road most traveled.
Watcher is on Hulu along with some other Maika Monroe films such as After Everything, The 5th Wave, her first movie At Any Price, and her biggest film to date It Follows if you'd like to do a movie marathon.
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