By Robert Scucci
| Published
I think it’s time for me to finally eat my words because I got what I asked for and I don’t know how I feel about it. One gripe that I’ve always had about a certain type of psychological thriller is how the “unreliable female protagonist” trope has become tired and underwhelming because there’s always some sort of third-act reveal that the caller from inside the house was actually her repressed memories coming back to haunt her or something similarly disappointing and unbelievable. Watcher, which is currently sitting at the #5 spot on the Netflix Top 10 movie list, has proven that you don’t need a protagonist who’s emotionally unstable and on the verge of a nervous breakdown because their paranoia is actually justified, and they’re not swallowing mouthfuls of anxiety medication every other scene, making you question their mental state every step of the way.
While I have mixed feelings about Watcher for doing exactly what I wanted it to do (the grass is always greener, isn’t it?), it’s one of the better psychological thrillers I’ve seen recently, as it creates an entirely different kind of anxiety– one that’s not from some unknown source of terror, but from one that’s out in the open that everybody chooses to write off as a delusion.
I Have A Feeling, Somebody’s Watching Me!
In Watcher, Maika Monroe’s Julia has every reason to feel out of her element as she relocates to Bucharest with her husband, Francis (Karl Glusman), so he could focus on his work.
Francis, who clearly does quite well for himself, spends long stretches of time away from the couple’s new home, while Julia, a woman between opportunities after leaving her acting aspirations back in the United States so she could stay close to Francis, doesn’t have a solid grasp on speaking Romanian despite her efforts to learn the language and assimilate, and spends all of her time alone in her new apartment.
Julia, who’s isloated in her new living situation, becomes frightened when she notices the figure of a man behind the curtains staring into her apartment from across the street throughout the day, and well into the night. Constantly watching the daytime news in an effort to immerse herself in the language and local happenings, Julia’s fears are confirmed after hearing reports of a serial killer known as “the Spider,” who’s been making headlines for decapitating the women he preys on.
Setting itself apart from similarly framed psychological thrillers, Watcher never makes you question Julia’s mental state, but rather makes you feel her paranoia and disillusionment first-hand because she knows she’s being watched and followed by a potential serial killer, but nobody believes her. Francis talks down to her because he thinks her imagination is running wild, and whenever the authorities get involved, they have reason to believe that Julia is the one doing all of the stalking because, to be fair, she becomes obsessed with Daniel Weber (Burn Gorman), the man who’s following her, and wants to confront him about his strange behavior.
Flipping The Script
While there was some part of me that wanted Watcher to be a little more ambiguous in its delivery, I made peace with the fact that writer/director Chloe Okuno flipped the script and decided to never make you question exactly what’s going on, even if the story is being told from Julia’s limited and increasingly (but justifiably) paranoid perspective.
Watcher isn’t your typical psychological thriller. It’s a cut above its contemporaries because the film’s secondary form of antagonism is how Julia actually gathers evidence that proves she’s being followed by a tangible threat who’s hiding in the shadows while everybody within her support network gaslights her into thinking it’s all in her head, causing her to spiral in all the ways that you would expect.
It doesn’t take very much time at all for you to understand what’s actually going on in Watcher because Julia never once cries wolf or acts so out-of-pocket that you actually need some big reveal or payoff to make sense of her situation. Watcher takes a different approach, and illustrates just how scary it can be for a young woman to walk alone in unfamiliar territory. What’s more, Julia doesn’t break down because she’s questioning her own reality, but rather because she knows what she’s experiencing is real and everybody else would rather assume that she’s being dramatic because she has too much time on her hands.
As of this writing, you can stream Watcher on Netflix.
