Saturday, September 24, 2022

The Voyeurs: a guiltless guilty pleasure

Greetings, commies!

You don't have to wait for Halloween to enjoy a creepy treat. For some of us it's been political Halloween for the past 7 months. If you want to take a break from WWIII, consider streaming The Voyeurs

Synopsis:

A young couple (Sydney Sweeney and Justice Smith), find themselves becoming interested in the sex life of their neighbors across the street (Ben Hardy and Natasha Liu Bordizzo). What starts as an innocent curiosity turns into an unhealthy obsession, after they discover that one neighbor is cheating. Temptation and desire cause their lives to become tangled together leading to deadly consequences.

My thoughts:

"If you see something, say/do something." Right? Not necessarily. Modern culture is filled with mixed messages and moral ambivalences. If you see "something" that "looks like something", what do you do? How do you decide if it's your place to step in? Are you truly following the call of your conscience to expose lies, or are you merely gratifying your idle, obscene curiosity? By the way, there is no such thing as "innocent curiosity" when it comes to other people's sex lives. I felt strangely dirty and guilty myself for watching a movie about voyeurs. I would call it "guilt-free guilty pleasure". 

A few words about Sydney Sweeney. I saw her in "Nocturne". She does a decent job playing a "good girl" with a few pesky demons who suddenly grow on her and take over her life. She has an expressive face and can go from innocent to psycho in a few seconds. 

Alas, the absolutely implausible ending cheapens the movie. If you can cut out the last 5 minutes, you will find yourself much more satisfied. I am not going to dismiss the movie altogether, because it does raise many valid questions in the realms of ethics and social norms. Take it as a cautionary tale about dark impulses masked as good intentions. 

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