Movie Review: The Voyeurs Plays With Sexual Tension

In a world where we all believe the grass is greener on the other side, watching The Voyeurs and how a couple descend into sexual jealousy and provocation does not feel so implausible. We watch celebrity couples rise in power and wish we too could be apart of a “power couple,” we rewind sex scenes from our favorite shows and imagine such passionate touches upon ourselves, and we dream of the world acknowledging, even desiring, our beauty. Yet, most of us are at home, in our pjs, heating up a microwavable meal and dreaming. I’m not saying that to degrade, but as much to acknowledge that The Voyeurs, out on Prime September 10, is a thriller with seeds of uncomfortable, chaotic true. 

Voyeurism is either enjoying people have sex or pain, of which both can be intertwined. Justice Smith plays Thomas: a sweet guy open to being opened for the pleasure of Sydney Sweeney’s Pippa. The latter creates a push and pull dynamic with Thomas and pleasure and pain as both discover the connection with such two forces, and feel a growing guilt and euphoria at enjoying their combination. Written and directed by Michael Mohan, the film is not abashed by its own perversion. If anything it drips until drops the anarchy of going from holding back, sexually, to holding nothing in. For Thomas and Pippa, it is as if their neighbors, (Ben Hardy as Seb and Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Julia) opens a floodgate within them that, aptly, makes even you wonder how did they have all “that” pent in them. Was it a hidden desire or a built one? 

I kind of compare Thomas and Pippa’s spiral to the many times I have opened a pack of oreos only to eat the whole pack in one sitting and act like, “How did that happen?” Their felt naughtiness is palpable and fascinating because this thriller finds its psychological machinations in how we watch each other and invent the lives of others to either deflect from or inspire our own. In this sense, the film has an underbelly of darkness that is not only stemmed in its sexual indecency but also its personal depression. In some ways, I could not help but see the restraint and engorging both leads endure, through their own plots, as a reflection of modern day voyeurism: social media and streaming. Yes, I am calling out both! (lol!)

I am not hear to grab a soapbox as much as some spiritual soap. We are all watching each other but the question is, “Are we looking at ourselves?” If 2020 taught me anything it is that I had completely been consumed by “watching.” Watching the world and trying to see my future ore myself in it, but never quite looking at me. Funny how that works!