Pippa (Sweeney), a junior optometrist, and Thomas (Smith), a composer, are a young couple who have just moved into their new apartment in Montreal, Canada. On their first night in their new home, they accidentally catch their neighbors - Sebastian (Ben Hardy) and Julia (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) - in the opposite building, having sex through their windows. Before long, Pippa and Thomas become fixated on the neighbors - to the point of obsession.
The Voyeurs was released on Amazon Prime in September 2021.
Tropes:
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: It's pretty obvious that Pippa's growing obsession with Sebastian and Julia is rooted in her arousal over Sebastian's sexual adventures and stamina compared to the more conventional Thomas. Fully confirmed by the fact that after Pippa and Thomas break up, she (the same day) follows Sebastian into a bar and after he approaches she and agrees to join him in his apartment and then take nude pictures of her, very obviously predicting the sexual encounter that ensues.
- As You Know: To make Joni and Thomas's relationship clear as they're chatting with Pippa and another friend, she decides to address him as "brother" and he responds with "sibling."
- Binocular Shot: Seen many times, after Pippa buys a pair of binoculars to spy on the couple across the street.
- Black Dude Dies First: Thomas, the only Black person of the four main characters, is the sole character to (really) die.
- Bookends: The film begins with Pippa and Thomas moving into their new apartment and seeing Sebastian and Julia through the windows. The film ends with a different couple, this time two men, moving into Pippi and Thomas' former apartment and seeing Sebastian and Julia (who are now blind) through the windows.
- Chekhov's Gun: Pippa's job, as an opthamologist who does laser eye surgery. She uses her skills to blind Sebastian and Julia in the end.
- The Conspiracy: Sebastian's new exhibition turns out to be a series of photographs depicting Pippa and Thomas's voyeurism, with every single event in the film, including Thomas apparent suicide, orchestrated by Sebastian and Julia for the exhibition. Even the lease for the apartment contained a photo release form - that neither Thomas nor Pippa bothered to read when they signed.
- A Deadly Affair: After Pippa befriends Julia, she takes it upon herself to warn Julia that Sebastian is cheating on her via anonymous prints. Julia is driven into a rage and contemplates killing Sebastian in his sleep, before breaking down. The next morning, Thomas and Pippa see that Julia killed herself. Or so it seems...
- Disproportionate Retribution: Pippa's (albeit unethical) voyeurism leads to some excessively harsh karma in the form of a photo of Thomas hanging himself being exhibited and Julia pinning the blame entirely on her. Say what you will about her habit of spying on other people, but Pippa definitely didn't deserve to have that publicly associated with her. Specially if you take into account that Thomas didn't really commit suicide; it was Julia who drugged him and hanged him.
- Dramatic Drop:
- Pippa is getting turned on by Sebastian's chiseled torso as she watches him. Then he seems to make eye contact with her from across the way, causing her to dramatically drop the glass she's holding.
- Pippa does this again with the bouquet of flowers, after finding Thomas hanged.
- Driven to Suicide:
- Julia appears to slit her wrists after discovering Sebastian's been cheating on her. It turns out to be faked though.
- Thomas hangs himself on seeing Pippa having sex with Sebastian, though she later suspects it was actually murder, and it's strongly implied she's right.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Pippa follows Seb to a bar, where he was drinking alone after Julia's suicide. Subverted in that it turns out to be an act.
- Exact Words: Towards the end, Pippa says to Sebastian, "I'm the last thing you'll ever see," shortly before blinding him.
- Eye Scream: Pippa blinds Julia and Sebastian after she drugged them at the end using a laser surgery device, in revenge for their voyeurism. We see Sebastian's eye actually sizzling.
- Evil All Along: Julia, who manipulates Pippa, fake her suicide and later murders Thomas in order to produce Sebastian's latest photo exhibit, which involves exposing Thomas' hanging body and nude photos of Pippa, which she didn't consent to have publicly displayed. While Sebastian expresses some guilt in the aftermath of the exhibit's successful opening, Julia doesn't care about the victims of their actions.
- Faking the Dead: Julia faked her suicide in the bathroom, showing up alive later as part of the ambush she springs with Sebastian on Pippa.
- Fan Disservice: Pippa's nude photoshoot is initially very sexy, but it quickly becomes this when Sebastian and Julia reveal the photos of her to an entire audience at an art gallery.
- Fanservice Extra:
- Four different models are shown nude and/or having sex with Sebastian. All of them are of course beautiful, but none get names onscreen or in most cases even lines.
- Pippa and Julia take a trip to a women's spa where several of the clients are completely naked.
- Foreshadowing: Julia's coincidentally dressing up as Margot Tenenbaum for the Halloween party after being dubbed "Margot" by Pippa, which both Pippa and Thomas laugh off as a funny coincidence makes sense when you learn that Julia and Sebastian are not only aware of being spied upon by Pippa and Thomas, but that they are actively spying on them in return.
- When Thomas comes home, he drinks from a bottle, gags at the taste and pours the rest of it into the bird feeder on their balcony. He then looks across the street and sees Pippa cheating on him with Sebastian. The next morning, Pippa comes home and finds Thomas hanging by his neck from the ceiling. It's not until some time later that Pippa spots the dead birds that have accumulated near the bird feeder and realizes Thomas didn't kill himself.
- Hollywood Law: The film implies the agent who leased the apartment to Pippa and Thomas is in on Sebastian and Julia's plans, and may have even neglected to point out the photo release form to Pippa and Thomas. In the real world, allowing tenants to be turned into a photo exhibit without their knowledge would be a huge legal issue for both the agent (potentially leading to her losing her real estate license) and the landlord (Sebastian).
- Laser-Guided Karma: Pun intended. Pippa blinds Sebastian — a star photographer — and Julia — his wife and partner-in-crime — by drugging them and giving them excessive laser-surgery as punishment for their voyeurism and apparent murder of Thomas.
- Love Forgives All but Lust: Thomas freaks out when he sees the grisly consequences of Pippa's interference with their neighbors' personal lives and leaves her, but comes back later that night with some flowers, making it clear he's forgiven her. Then he looks out the window and sees Pippa having sex with Sebastian.
- Mad Artist: Julia and Sebastian manipulates a young couple and even commits murder in order to produce a photo exhibit to comment on the contemporary culture of everyday voyeurism. And while Sebastian has conflicted feelings in the aftermath, Julia basks in the attention the press is giving their exhibit.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: Pippa thinks Thomas didn't actually kill himself after noticing some evidence, but he was drugged by Julia and then hanged by her to make it look this way. It isn't explicitly confirmed, but strongly implied she's right.
- Match Cut:
- A little Black Comedy as the film cuts from an extreme closeup of an eye (one of the clients at Pippa's laser surgery job) to a closeup of a soft-boiled egg as Pippa slices it open.
- This happens again at the end, when a shot of an eyeball as Pippa burns it out with a laser cuts to an egg frying on a pan.
- Mr. Fanservice: Sebastian is a handsome man who's basically a Walking Shirtless Scene, since he spends about half the film with his shirt off, showing his muscles (in some cases while having sex, too).
- Ms. Fanservice:
- Julia is a former model who's quite lovely, and her having sex topless with the window uncovered is what initially gets her neighbors watching. She later also tries to seduce her husband in skimpy lingerie, and is shown topless from the back while getting into a pool beside Pippa.
- Pippa is shown naked at length when Sebastian photographs her, and later while having sex with him. She is quite pretty and buxom.
- Not Your Problem: Once Pippa befriends Julia, she begins to empathize with her suspicions about Sebastian. Thomas repeatedly tells her not to get involved.
- Ari also tells Pippa that, even though she's feeling guilty, neither Thomas' nor Julia's deaths are her fault.
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Never Live It Down: Pippa's topless photos find their way into the internet. Two employees of the moving company ogle her photos on a cell phone pretty much in her presence. - The Peeping Tom: Pippa and Thomas start spying on their sexy neighbors across the way as the pair have sex with the windows wide open. They're at first conflicted, but increasingly get into it, having sex while watching Sebastian's escapades, and even plant bugs in the neighbors' apartment to listen in their conversations. After it turns out Sebastian has been sleeping with many other women during the day, they get increasingly involved with their lives. It turns out in the end that Sebastian and Julia had also been spying on them this whole time, even sneakily getting legal permission for it, and wanted them to watch, role-playing things for manipulation.
- Plot-Inciting Infidelity: Pippa and Thomas were content to just get the occasional glimpse into their neighbor's apartment, seeing it as little more than victimless mischief, until Sebastian starts having sex with random women behind Julia's back.
- Polyamory: Discussed when Pippa sees Sebastian having sex with other women, her friends suggesting he's not really cheating on Julia but they have an open relationship. This seems to be the case at the end, as she's in on everything.
- Read the Fine Print: Thomas and Pippa failed to notice the lease they signed to rent the apartment included a photo release form that allows Julia and Sebastian to use their images for their latest art project. This is even lampshaded in an interview by Julia and Sebastian.
- Repeat Cut: The shot of the glass breaking, when Pippa dramatically drops it after thinking Sebastian made eye contact with her, is shown three times.
- Threeway Sex: At one point, Sebastian's shown getting up from bed after having had sex with two models.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: Seb seems to have an allergy to shirts. Lampshaded when Thomas watches a shirtless Seb photographing a topless model and laughs about them both having their shirts off.
- Wham Shot: A very much alive Julia shows up at the gallery opening.
