Before observerScream Queen Maika Monroe starred in It follows, a psychological horror film directed by David Robert Mitchell about a young woman (Monroe) who becomes the latest recipient of a curse passed on through sexual intercourse. Like the victims before her, Monroe’s Jay is stalked by an evil entity that presents itself as strangers—sometimes even lovers, and the actress does a fantastic job of capturing feelings of paranoia and unease.
In Neil Jordan’s Psychological Thriller Greta, Monroe plays a similar role to Erica Penn, the best friend of main character Frances McCullen (Chloë Grace Moretz). When Frances befriends the widow Greta (Isabelle Huppert), Erica becomes suspicious of the older woman’s intentions. Her concerns prove valid after Greta begins stalking Frances and then Erica. Greta was less well received than It follows, which gained an impressive cult following, but Monroe’s achievements are still impressive. Playing stalked women is what she does best, and her most recent – arguably best – movie, observerproves that.
Directed by Chloe Okuno – who recently directed the horror comedy A24 Bodies Bodies Bodies — Watcher follows a young woman named Julia (Monroe) who moves to Bucharest with her husband Francis (Karl Glusman). There she becomes the object of the gaze of a strange man (Burn Gorman). The film opens with Julia and Francis riding in a taxi to their luxurious studio apartment; the taxi driver chats with Francis in Romanian, and Julia, who does not know the language, is left out. And because Okuno doesn’t use subtitles for this or any Romanian-language scene, viewers feel her pain.
Immediately upon arriving at their apartment, Julia notices someone staring at her from the adjacent block of flats; she thinks nothing of it and is given a tour of their complex by a Romanian woman whom she cannot understand again. The apartment is large and spacious with a large window that overlooks the apartment opposite. Francis and Julia have sex for it, unaware that they are being watched.
That same evening, Julia sees a figure staring at her from the other apartment. She wipes the weather off and is busy learning Romanian and exploring the city while Francis, who is half Romanian, goes to work. Eventually, the figure becomes a staple in her daily life, and Julia decides she doesn’t want to keep quiet anymore; she tells Francis, who is empathetic but slightly disdainful. “I can’t see anything,” he says, before Julia asks him to forget everything.
Francis waves Julia’s worries away – even jokes about it with colleagues – but she can’t. A serial killer, dubbed ‘the spider’, is on the loose and beheads young women around her. One day, Julia feels that she is being followed and takes refuge in a cinema. Despite the cinema being nearly empty, a man sits directly behind Julia, causing her to panic and forcing her to change locations again. At the supermarket, Julia thinks she is being stalked by the same man, although she is not sure, as she later tells the police.
Police incompetence and rejection of women’s experiences are a major theme in observer. When Julia tells Francis about the incident at the supermarket, his reaction is questionable: “Did he follow you?” “Did he follow you here?” And after Julia replies, no, he didn’t follow her home, he seems to question her sanity. He is reassured by his conclusion when he sees the CCTV footage of Julia in the store. While Julia sees a man threatening her, Francis simply sees a man staring back at the woman staring at him.
The police also ignore Julia and repeat her words in a condescending tone: “You… think [he followed you]?” “You think is this the same man you saw in the window?” The only person Julia really believes is her neighbor Irina (Madalina Anea), a pole dancer who is used to having men stare at her. Irina isn’t surprised that Julia followed her stalker to the former’s workplace, and she certainly doesn’t doubt her claims.When Julia asks Irina, “Do I just sound paranoid?” Irina takes a deep breath before responding:
‘Let’s hope you never find out. The best outcome may be that you have to live with the uncertainty. Better than being raped and strangled and dying with the words ‘I told you so’ on your lips. Not true?’
observer holds up a mirror to reality and reflects the experiences of female stalking victims as they question their treatment. It is thought provoking and enlightening, without being preachy. Okuno lets the horror unfold, inviting viewers to come to their own conclusion: is Julia crazy or not?
observer is also very entertaining: think rosemary baby meets Promising young woman kind of entertaining. References to the former are everywhere from the setting to the creeping paranoia, and comparisons to the latter are obvious. Atmosphere is all in observer, and Okuno’s attention to detail is impressive. For example, both Julia and her apartment change appearances towards the end of the film; while Julia ditches bold clothes in favor of a neutral color palette that she can blend in, her apartment seems less minimalist and elegant and more claustrophobic and cold. But the best part about observer is the performance of Monroe.
Okuno hit the nail on the head when she told me A frame“Maika is very good at adapting and executing these subtle changes. You can interpret a lot with a very small expression on Maika’s face.” Julia says very little observer, but her facial expressions — when she’s excluded from the dinner table, scolded by a neighbor, or turned away by men — says it all. She is an ordinary character, but Monroe gives her complexity and viewers will want to stay to know her fate.
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