STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
Pippa (Sydney Sweeney) and Thomas (Justice Smith) are a young couple who live in an apartment in New York City. From the view of their window, they are able to stare across the street into the apartment of fellow young couple Seb (Ben Hardy) and Julia (Natasha Bordizzo) and the open eroticism they enjoy with each other. After a while, what they are able to see crosses boundaries, and when Pippa strikes a friendship with Julia through her work as an optician, it sets in motion a devastating chain of events with deadly consequences.
We live in a time where privacy has become largely redundant. If we don't have apps spying on us through our phones, tracking our movements and relaying it to God knows who, or companies selling our data to whoever we inadvertently allow them, to reality TV shows where we spy in on the private affairs of people we don't know for entertainment they're in on, the age where everything felt secure feels long gone. And so, there is at least a refreshing honesty in what they both know they're doing to the central protagonists of director Michael Mohen's dark erotic thriller, an at least pleasingly adult and unrestrained piece with a deeper undertone.
Disasterously, it fails initially right at the beginning, introducing us to two undercooked, rather unengaging lead characters, who fail to really draw us in until they start their unethical business. This will write it off for some, but for those who stick around, it does develop in to a more dark and compelling piece, with lead star Sweeney displaying a skittish vulnerability as the girl with a dark secret, while part time East Ender Hardy has a strong presence as the domineering third party player, building up to a shocking conclusion with a dark twist, which gives it the feel of an old Tales of the Unexpected episode, but for some reason it decides to prattle on for another twenty or so minutes, completely ruining what could have been a great ending with a ridiculous turn of events. (Author's Note: The ending does bare a similarity to a 1980 episode of TOTU entitled Depart in Peace, starring Joseph Cotten.)
If it had had the good sense to end when it should have, it could have worked as a dark morality tale, but spoilt by its own indulgence, it leaves a nonsensical lasting impression, despite everything it got right, not least a drowned out new version of Billy Idol's 1983 classic Eyes Without a Face playing over the beginning and end credits. ***
Pippa (Sydney Sweeney) and Thomas (Justice Smith) are a young couple who live in an apartment in New York City. From the view of their window, they are able to stare across the street into the apartment of fellow young couple Seb (Ben Hardy) and Julia (Natasha Bordizzo) and the open eroticism they enjoy with each other. After a while, what they are able to see crosses boundaries, and when Pippa strikes a friendship with Julia through her work as an optician, it sets in motion a devastating chain of events with deadly consequences.
We live in a time where privacy has become largely redundant. If we don't have apps spying on us through our phones, tracking our movements and relaying it to God knows who, or companies selling our data to whoever we inadvertently allow them, to reality TV shows where we spy in on the private affairs of people we don't know for entertainment they're in on, the age where everything felt secure feels long gone. And so, there is at least a refreshing honesty in what they both know they're doing to the central protagonists of director Michael Mohen's dark erotic thriller, an at least pleasingly adult and unrestrained piece with a deeper undertone.
Disasterously, it fails initially right at the beginning, introducing us to two undercooked, rather unengaging lead characters, who fail to really draw us in until they start their unethical business. This will write it off for some, but for those who stick around, it does develop in to a more dark and compelling piece, with lead star Sweeney displaying a skittish vulnerability as the girl with a dark secret, while part time East Ender Hardy has a strong presence as the domineering third party player, building up to a shocking conclusion with a dark twist, which gives it the feel of an old Tales of the Unexpected episode, but for some reason it decides to prattle on for another twenty or so minutes, completely ruining what could have been a great ending with a ridiculous turn of events. (Author's Note: The ending does bare a similarity to a 1980 episode of TOTU entitled Depart in Peace, starring Joseph Cotten.)
If it had had the good sense to end when it should have, it could have worked as a dark morality tale, but spoilt by its own indulgence, it leaves a nonsensical lasting impression, despite everything it got right, not least a drowned out new version of Billy Idol's 1983 classic Eyes Without a Face playing over the beginning and end credits. ***