Watcher (2022) | Film Review

In Watcher, director Chloe Okuno’s debut feature, Julia has decided to escort her husband on an exciting vocational opportunity all the way to Bucharest. While this might be a fantastic holiday experience, it becomes a terrifying lonely one when it is an extended term and you do not speak the language, have any friends, there is a serial killer on the loose, and you believe the neighbor across the way just might be stalking you.

As Julia, Maika Monroe (It Follows, The Guest) is the lifeblood of Watcher. Huge swaths of the film are devoted to Julia as she succumbs deeper and deeper into the vast pit of despair that paranoia can wreak on one’s mental state. Julia’s husband, Francis (Karl Glusman) works long hours, leaving Julia to her devices for enormous amounts of time. As she continues to notice a figure in an apartment across from her seemingly watch her every move, Julia’s suspicions and obsession increases. Is this figure staring at HER? Did he really wave back at her? Is he (or she) dangerous? Could this be the serial killer everyone is horrified of? Or, is it feasible, that Julia is the one doing the stalking?

Maika Monroe carries the film alongside Okuno’s ominous direction, and it’s imperative that we as the audience understand her character’s choices. Too often in a film like this, we find ourselves screaming at the screen over the idiotic decisions our lead makes that guides her and the film to an absurdly dramatic conclusion. Monroe convinces us of our own uncertainty as to what is truly happening, and instills the audience with our own fears. When Julia doubts herself, we doubt her. When she is certain, we feel reassured. Monroe elevates what could have been a rudimentary thriller into a white-knuckle experience of madness.

Hitchcockian is a term bandied about a bit too freely in this day-and-age, mostly because it’s an easy descriptor which covers numerous bases. As an avid Hitchcock devotee, nothing irritates me more as a critic as when that moniker is poorly applied. Watcher is a spiritual successor to Rear Window if told from Lisa Fremont’s viewpoint, which is no small feat for any film. Director Chloe Okuno is as deliberate and methodical with her lens as Hitchcock ever was, and her patience with pacing and immersion – allowing a moment to build through events rather than a tacked-on score – creates a mounting tension which continues to increase as the film unrolls. Atmospheric, taut, and engaging, Okuno’s assured direction is evident in every frame.

With Watcher, Okuno and Monroe take us on a rollercoaster of emotions, just as Julia embodies, and thankfully, it proves very Hitchcockian by the film’s extremely brutal finale. I cannot wait to see what Okuno does next.

Follow our further discussion on Watcher via this episode of The Hollywood Outsider podcast: