In Chloe Okuno’s stylish debut “Watcher,” the title refers not just to one person, but two, when the watched becomes the watcher, the stalker and stalked swapping places throughout the course of this chilly psychological thriller. Working in the vein of ‘70s-style horror, Okuno’s “Watcher” is in dialogue with films like Roman Polanski’s “Repulsion” and “Rosemary’s Baby,” nods to Andrzej Zulawski’s “Possession” with its foreboding European setting, and features a Hitchcock blonde in heroine Julia (Maika Monroe). But those films about vulnerable women caught in voyeuristic traps were all directed by men, and with Okuno, a female writer/director, telling the story, it’s a very different result, one that’s emotionally and ethically complex, but undeniable in its bold clarity.
Newlyweds Julia and Francis (Karl Glusman) arrive in Bucharest, Romania, ready to start a new chapter in a new city. Francis, who is half-Romanian, has a high-powered advertising job, but Julia, an erstwhile actress, doesn’t have much to do. She wanders the city, practicing her halting Romanian in coffee shops and attempting to sightsee alone. As a serial killer known as “the Spider” slays the women of Bucharest, slashing their throats, Julia realizes she’s under surveillance, and not just from the taxi drivers who call her “beautiful.” Through the oversize picture windows in their apartment, she notices someone (Burn Gorman) across the street, watching her, and suddenly he seems to be everywhere.
The brilliant thing about Julia in “Watcher” is she does everything right, and yet, it’s maddening, because it doesn’t protect her. She tells her husband as soon as she feels uncomfortable about this man watching her, and reports the strange incidents when he follows her to shopkeepers and the police. But her actions, to the men around her, seem strange and sketchy. Francis just barely refrains from calling her crazy, though refers to her experiences “a fantasy,” and capably rationalizes this stranger’s behavior. All Julia has the agency and ability to do herself is simply watch him back.
