The Watched (2024)

AKA The Watchers.

Here is a film in which Dakota Fanning plays someone who spends a large portion of the runtime being watched, hence the title, and it must be said that she's a very watchable presence onscreen.

That doesn't mean that The Watched is one to watch though, sadly. This is a bad, messy, film that starts off weak and then just gets worse and worse, en route to a thoroughly disappointing ending.

Fanning plays Mina, a young woman obviously struggling to get through everyday life while dealing with her emotional/mental health baggage. She ends up in a mysterious forest in Ireland where she encounters a group of trapped individuals, subsequently becoming trapped alongside them. There are rules, there are entities watching them, and Mina might not really mind being caught in such a limbo state that keeps her focused on the here and now.

The feature debut of Ishana Shyamalan, who adapted the story from the novel by A. M. Shine and directed this, that's the most obvious explanation for The Watched feeling like one of the weaker stories presented to audiences by her father, M. Night Shyamalan. That may seem harsh, but it's impossible to spot the familiar surname, watch this film unfold, and not come to the conclusion that this is the work of a child trying, and failing, to emulate/impress a parent. It's a stick figure drawing passed across for the approval of someone who is responsible for some superb oil-on-canvas portraits.

None of the cast are treated very well by the requirements of the script. Fanning languishes, her character fully defined by her unhappiness. Olwen Fouéré plays the nominal leader of the group, Madeline, and she has to deliver exposition and rules that ultimately make no sense. Georgina Campbell, Oliver Finnegan, and Alistair Brammer play the less important characters, and John Lynch appears just in time to test the patience and observation skills of exasperated viewers.

While there are a few nice visual flourishes here and there, nothing is impressive enough to make you forgive the lack of skill in the writing and directing department, which you could also describe as the lack of skill from Shyamalan. Perhaps this would all be more enjoyable if it was a TV episode (maybe one of The X-Files or a 2-part Grimm special), but it's not. It's a full feature film that some people thought would work well enough to enable audiences to suspend their disbelief and enjoy themselves for 102 minutes. 

The attempts to create tension don't work, the attempts to make the lead character sympathetic don't work, the backstory being used to feed into the narrative doesn't work. The Watched just doesn't work. Maybe we'll see Ishana Shyamalan do better with whatever she does next. At least she'll get the luxury of having another bite at the cherry, unlike a number of female film-makers who don't have the same good fortune.

3/10

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