Review: The Voyeurs

The Voyeurs (2021) is an American dramatic thriller. It was written and directed by Michael Mohan.

Pippa (Sidney Sweeney) and Thomas (Justice Smith) are a young, newlywed, or possibly only newly cohabiting couple. Together they have moved into a swanky loft in Montreal, Canada. Their loft features gigantic bay windows that offer them marvelous views of the city that surrounds them. In particular, it basically turns their neighboring high rise into their own personal movie theater, within which they can entertain themselves by visually eavesdropping (is there a word for visually eavesdropping? Spying. There we go) on the residents across the urban chasm between them. Residents, whose residences also feature gigantic bay windows with which to be visually eavesdropped upon.

One afternoon, very close to their moving in, the couple catches another couple in flagrante delicto in the apartment across the gorge. At first, they are hamstrung by the potential immorality of watching another couple doing it to each other in as public a way as a couple can, while still remaining in a private residence. However, people like to watch other people do it to each other, and the is The Voyeurs after all, so against the advice of their inner Jiminy Crickets, Pippa and Thomas feat their eyes upon the lusty pair.

Before too long, Pippa and Thomas become annual passholders to the regular peep show put on by the strangers across the way. Quickly, they become emotionally invested in the lives of these two strangers as if they were binge-watching a series starring them on Netflix. So invested does Pippa become that she spearheads an initiative in which the Voyeurs scheme up a way to not only peep on their neighbors, but to non=-visually eavesdrop on their conversations as well.

As you may have guessed, things for the young couple go sour very quickly once Pippa’s addiction to the parasocial relationship she has developed with her fellow Montreal residents, Seb (Ben Hardy) and Julia (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), begins to consume her. Pippa finds herself out of her depth, with nobody to toss her a life-preserver, and must figure out a way to clean up the mess she has made out of watching another couple make a mess of their own.

I must admit, the first 20 or so minutes of The Voyeurs had me worried that this was going to be a movie that would not impress me. The performances and dialogue seemed a little forced; a little trite. Never being one who feels that quitting is an okay thing to do, I soldiered on.

Before too long, I started to really enjoy this thing. All of a sudden, once all of the world-building is out of the way, the performances became much better, the story became more intriguing, and I started to have a good time with it. As the film progressed, I was drawn in to the point that I was curiously speculating on what was going to happen. Enthusiastically, I looked forward to being taken to wherever this movie needed to take me.

To be clear, The Voyeurs is tawdry and trashy. However, is that not exactly what one would want from a film named The Voyeurs? It reminded me of the “Skin-emax” films from days gone by. The kind of film that Cinemax, Showtime, or HBO would only show after 10pm. The somewhat gratuitous T&A, and the very “adult” themes and situations contained in these films were certain to net these networks more letters from angry parents who relied on cable TV to babysit their children than they could handle for exposing a nation of impressionable youths to the kinds of things adults do once the kids have gone to bed.

So many films of today seem to have a chip on their shoulder about some kind of social injustice or cultural malady. While I do believe that there is a place in cinema from where on can educate their audience, after a while it grows tiresome. It was nice to watch a film that didn’t have any kind of social agenda to press, and that was willing to wallow in its well-crafted sleaze.

By no means do I intend to suggest that The Voyeurs doesn’t provide the viewer with any food-for-thought. On the contrary, it absolutely does. The situations and actions of its characters are likely to provide more than one diner-and-drinks worth of conversations about the things that transpire, and their philosophical/moral implications. That is one of the films strengths. Unlike something like the virtually unwatchable 50 Shades of Grey (Sam Taylor-Johnson, 2015) which takes an almost childish moral stance about its subject matter, The Voyeurs leaves it up to the viewer to decide how they feel; to decide what is right and what is wrong about the events of the film. Something that too many modern films can’t seem to bring themselves to do.

I don’t mean to suggest that The Voyeurs is going to be a hot contender for any Academy Awards here. The film is not without its flaws. Many of the things that transpire require leaps of logic and plenty of suspension-of-disbelief in order to roll with the story through to its conclusion. Yet the film is never insulting, and more importantly, I had no resistance whatsoever to performing those leaps. While there are dark elements to the film, Goddamnit, it was fun. More than anything else, it felt good to watch a movie that wasn’t concerned with changing society, or any kind of prevailing attitudes. It just wanted to tell an interesting, unpredictable story in a provocative, engrossing way, and maybe make you have to loosen your tie, or defog your glasses while they were at it.

I feel as if I have more or less made my point here, and I should probably make my egress before I become redundant. I feel like there is an obvious metaphor at play here about how the film is called The Voyeurs, but that it is we the audience who are the true voyeurs. That Michael Mohan is trying to make us think about how if we want to point any fingers at Pippa, that maybe we should turn those fingers around and point them at ourselves. I also feel like plenty of other reviewers will put that into its proper context far better than I ever could, so I will leave it at that.

I will just say that I genuinely enjoyed The Voyeurs. It will likely stimulate conversation, and introspection. It is also highly likely that it will stimulate some amorousness as well. I can imagine that there may be some children conceived by viewing couples, having paused this thing somewhere in the middle, taken care of business, and returned to concentrating on the story, instead of concentrating on the exquisitely sculpted exteriors of the film’s stars.

The Voyeurs is sexy, raffish fun. An ideal film with which to uncork a bottle of wine, and unwind with, after having put the kids to bed, and left the phone on the charger in the other room. This is exactly the kind of movie we could have used more of during quarantine. I will look forward to future efforts from Mohan, He’s done a bang up job of piquing my interest.

P.S. I didn’t actually catch it in the film, however, the end credits contained a listing for the song Dearest Alfred by the band Khruangbin. I am currently head over heels in love with this band. Their brand of psychedelic funk and soul is completely unique to them, and they are absolutely incredible. Forgive me for the shameless plug, but since I have your attention anyways, I have done you the favor of including the official video for Dearest Alfred for your viewing/listening pleasure. You’re welcome.