Naomi Watts and Bobby Cannavale have some nosy neighbors in Ryan Murphy's upcoming limited series "The Watcher," as revealed by Netflix in the official trailer.
Based on true events, the seven-episode series follows Dean and Nora Brannock as they move into their dream home in the idyllic suburb of Westfield, New Jersey, but inevitably find their new neighborhood isn't quite as welcoming. When the pair start receiving sinister letters from someone called "The Watcher", the sinister secrets of the neighborhood and its residents are revealed.
Creators: Ian Brennan, Ryan Murphy
Stars: Luke David Blumm, Terry Kinney, Michael Nouri
Along with Cannavale and Watts, the cast includes Mia Farrow, Terry Kinney, Richard Kind, Margo Martindale, Noma Dumezweni, Joe Mantello and Jennifer Coolidge as Karen Calhoun, the real estate agent who sells the unsuspecting couple their New Jersey home.
"Watcher" deals with the confusion between the voyeur and the "object" of the voyeur. When he looks at her, she looks back. She is as aware of him as he is of her. She is an "observer" too. The limits are blurred. He infiltrates her in her every waking moment. But the terrifying thing is that no crime has been committed. It's not a crime to stand at her window and look at the building across the street. Such behavior is a part of city life, as is people-watching. A lot of this is well-trodden ground (particularly Hitchcockian ground), and references to "Rear Window," both visually and thematically, are everywhere. But the film's sharp psychological portrayal of a lost woman frightened, sleepless and possibly hallucinating, patronized (lovingly, even worse) by the man who is supposed to care for her, is more reminiscent of "Rosemary's Baby," and the careful attention of the film to interiors (doors ajar, blind corners, vast impassable spaces, crowded elevators) is Polanski territory. Another Polanski film, "Repulsion," provides poignant reference points. Julia, wandering through the cavernous apartment, pinned to the spot by the observer across the way, loses all sense of time, herself and her surroundings, much as Catherine Deneuve does in "Repulsion."
Julia, the character, is poorly drawn. This serves the genre, but it also makes her seem a bit ciphered. Julia was an actress and left him to come to Romania with her husband. Does she have resentment for this? Was she at the movies or the theater? Was she just "vacuuming"? What is her plan now? Monroe's performance makes you forget the character's gaps. It is simple and direct in its approach to him, and we see how terror takes over his life. Fear is not so much an emotion as it is an attack on the whole being. All systems shut down. Monroe embodies this.
While there are numerous "showdowns" in "Watcher," the terror here comes primarily from the threat of what might happen. There is nothing scarier than that. The mind can imagine anything.
In early September, Netflix released a trailer featuring Coolidge in a fake open house promo for the Westfield estate. “In fact, you can look outside and see everything that happens in the city. But you want to keep the curtains closed,” Coolidge says in the sneak peek as she looks out the window. “You know, there's a lot of weird neighbors and stuff out there and, you know, you don't want to be looked at. That is sure."
The series is co-created and executive produced by Murphy and Ian Brennan, with Alexis Martin Woodall, Eric Kovtun, Bryan Unkeless, Eric Newman, Paris Barclay, Naomi Watts, Ariel Schulman, Henry Joost and Scoop Wasserstein serving as executive producers.
Watch The Watcher 2022 Tv Series Trailer
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