Sundance review: 'Watcher' takes a page out of Hitchcock, and serves up a stylish thriller all its own

In her feature debut, “Watcher,” director Chloe Okuno delivers a straight-up suspense thriller that is all killer and no filler.

When Francis (Karl Glusman) gets a promotion and a transfer to Bucharest, his fiancee Julia (Maika Monroe) moves there with him. She doesn’t understand Romanian, but listens to language lessons to try to pick up a few phrases. She is a bit at loose ends, trying to figure out how to spend her days while Francis at work — and how not to freak out when the TV news talks about a serial killer in the area.

One night, Julia notices a man in the building across the street, apparently looking at her. (Julia and Francis’ apartment has ridiculously large windows and inadequate drapes, by the way.) The next night, it happens again. She tries to call Francis’ attention to this, but he’s sure there’s an innocent explanation. When Julia thinks the same guy (Burn Gorman) is following her in a grocery store, Francis suggests he looks creepy because Julia’s been acting creepy toward the stranger.

That’s as simple a thriller premise as you can get, and even Okuno acknowledges her debt to Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window.” (Hey, if you’re going to steal, steal the good stuff.) And while Hitchcock’s influence, along with that of a few other filmmakers, can be felt throughout, Okuno (who co-wrote the script with Zack Ford) adds enough of her own touches to make the suspenseful moments realistically chilling.

Okuno’s ace in the hole is Monroe, who made her horror-thriller rep starring in “It Follows” in 2014. Monroe has to carry Julia’s swirling emotions — loneliness, apprehension, paranoia, and anger that Francis doesn’t believe her — and does so with grace and fury. Monroe’s perfectly dialed into Julia’s character, which lets us feel the gaze of “Watcher” like lasers to our skull. 

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‘Watcher’

★★★1/2

Premiered Friday, January 21, in the U.S. Dramatic competition at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. Screens again on the festival portal, Sunday, January 23, for a 24-hour window starting at 8 a.m. Not rated, probably R for strong violence and bloodshed, nudity and sexual content, and language. Running time: 91 minutes.