Watcher
Language : English / Romanian
Year of release : 2022
Run time : 1h37min
Genre : Psychological Thriller / Mystery / Suspense
Cast : Maika Monroe, Karl Glusman, Burn Gorman
Julia, a former actress, moves with her husband to Bucharest, Romania, as he is offered a good job in the city. She spends most of her time alone, as he is gone all day long and most of the evening.
She starts suspecting the neighbor from the building in front of theirs is stalking her,as whenever she looks out the large window he is standing by the window ,watching her, and she also feels followed by the man, whenever she is outside.
She calls the police but they don't believe her and neither does her husband,who speaks in a very demeaning way about her to his colleagues,at a party,towards the end of the movie.
This is all brought up by the fact, one day she heard loud noises coming from the apartment next door, and in the evening, while coming home from a night out with her husband, they see the police taking out a body, later seeing in the news that the woman was butchered in her home, the k1ller, thought to be a serial k1ller called the Spider, decapitating her.
She later befriends the next door neighbor, Irina, the only one of her neighbors who knows English, who is in an on and off relationship with her boyfriend.
After she follows the man whom she always sees following her around to the strip club Irina is working at, Irina disappears, and the neighbors think Julia crazy for calling the landlord to check on her after hearing loud noises coming from her apartment.
I personally enjoyed the movie. I liked their apartments (Julia’s and Irina’s), the building, the vibe of the movie, the way it was filmed (there’s a scene at night, when it’s raining, and the rain is falling on the windows, but we see its shadow on the walls. I liked the way it looks and the vibe it gives).
The neighbor she suspects looks and acts suspicious.
The husband is not there, emotionally and psysically.
The actors were all good, especially Maika Monroe, who had to be on the edge and scared most of the time, and Burn Gorman, who played the watcher, who was weird, awkward, guarded, stiff,cold.
The English speaking actors who talked in Romanian,were actually really good at speaking it,they didn't destroy the language.
The movie was shot on set in Romania,and they actually chose beautiful places.
The soundtrack was good,melancholic.
Half of the movie is spoken in Romanian (they speak in Romanian as much as they do in English), so make sure when you watch it you have translations for it.
The movie (which was filmed in almost 6 weeks, from the 8th of March to the 16th of April 2021) was released at the Sundance Film Festival, and received positive reviews, being nominated for the Grand Jury Prize.
The movie has a positive critic rating of 88 % and an audience rating of 67% on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 72 score on Metacritic.
Rating : Worth a watch !