[Review] The Voyeurs' Mix of Sex, Lies and Laser Pointers is Wildly Uneven

The Voyeurs reminded me how much I miss sex in movies. For a culture that has become much more progressive and sexually liberated, the films we enjoy stray towards being more coquettishly chaste. A tease. A visual implication. But lacking the kind of eroticism that comprised a huge swathe of 90s-era thrillers starring adults who got into adult problems that would literally, as well as metaphorically, explode in their faces. In The Voyeurs, everything revolves around sex. It invades moments that should be chaste and warps images of every day actions, turning a visit to an optometrist into an intimate act that’s sinfully intoxicating. 

It makes sense because, as the title suggests, The Voyeurs is about our internal relationship to the outside world and the way we are titillated by sexual imagery on a daily basis. How easy that access is, from a peek at Instagram or Twitter to the way people meticulously create externally sexual images that hide turmoil just below the celluloid surface. Here, the thin veneer of acceptability is shed when Pippa (Sydney Sweeney) and Thomas (Justice Smith) purchase a high rise apartment in Montreal. They’ve just reached the cohabitation stage of their relationship and their huge, window-filled apartment showcases the fruits of their labor. 

It just so happens that their apartment faces another, equally transparent apartment. Like them, their neighbors don’t believe in curtains, even though the man, who’s later named Seb (Ben Hardy) is a fashion photographer who frequently films his models completely nude. The first night at their new place, Pippa and Thomas witness Seb and his wife Julia (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) kissing before fully going at it. At first, Pippa admonishes Thomas for spying on their neighbors (“They want us to look,” Thomas responds), but soon they’re both enraptured in the same dramas that unfold across the street. It starts small, the two of them sharing drinks while watching Seb begin to choke on a piece of food. Panicked, they wonder about calling the police or somehow alerting Julia to the action happening just a room over from her. But as Seb and Julia solve the problem, Pippa and Thomas cheer. And congratulate themselves as much as Julia for saving Seb. 

This begins their false feeling of intimacy that grows in more uncomfortable directions once they jury-rig a laser point to pick up the sounds from inside Seb and Julia’s apartment. When they discover that Seb is not only cheating on Julia but is gaslighting Julia into thinking she’s crazy for even suggesting he is, Thomas realizes they’re in too deep. But Pippa gets pushing. Between their lack of sex and Pippa’s growing fascination with Julia’s situation, she decides she needs to insert herself in their life. 

The Voyeurs plays with the use of mirrors and windows, turning our fascination with our phone screens and social media into a much larger tableaux. It instantly brings to mind more impressive films like Rear Window (and even Disturbia), but adds a sheen of sexuality that those films merely hinted at. On one hand, this really works to the film’s advantage as it feels like a real world representation of a person skimming over people’s Instagram or Twitter accounts, looking at the flesh that’s being presented to the world. Thomas comments on Seb’s exquisite manscaping, for instance, while Pippa coos that they’re way cooler than Pippa and Thomas could ever be. The narrative wants to lull the viewer in with their journey, peeling back the layers of Seb’s love life, while making you complicit yet excited with each new development.

The truth is, writer/director MIchael Mohan’s film is a conglomeration of erotic 90s thrillers and Rear Window that is never quite as titillating as it wants to be. Like Thomas and Pippa’s one-way fascination with Seb’s sex life, the film oftentimes is the embodiment of the male gaze; cinematographer Elisha Christian’s sharp style tends to focus on Seb’s models and Pippa’s body, lingering more than is necessary. Seb’s nudity, meanwhile, is quickly passed over, even though he is more pecs and abs than anything else. When Elisha isn’t focusing on naked bodies, he adds a semblance of dark comedy to the film with the cool way shots transition from focusing on eyeballs to slit, soft-boiled eggs, oozing their yolk. Yes, a metaphor for eye violence can feel a little on-the-nose for a film that’s all about vision, but it is still somewhat effective.

Unfortunately, The Voyeurs is wildly uneven as it moves from its focus on voyeuristic eroticism towards more darker subjects and twists. The two-hour film takes wild swing after wild swing as it reaches the back half and each turn feels just this side of absurd. The fantastic cast can’t quite keep up with the mental gymnastics the plot expects of them, turning some sequences of immense pain into overwrought melodrama. Each twist turns The Voyeurs into a completely different genre, from Lifetime melodrama to revenge thrillers to mustachioed villains camp. For as long as the film is, specific hard-hitting moments aren’t given enough time to breathe, particularly when the film throws caution to the wind with a truly bonkers finale.

Somehow, The Voyeurs grabbed my attention throughout most of its two hour runtime, but its indelicate way of handling specific sequences and its foray into comedy-verging-on-camp made it difficult to completely recommend.