Eye of the Beholder

Eye of the Beholder is such a strange movie that it kind of forces you to watch it. Beginning as a James Bond copycat, it slowly morphs into an obsessive stalker’s infatuation with a murderous woman.

Ewan McGregor plays The Eye, an intelligence agent who must track a woman suspected of blackmailing a senior government official. His target, he discovers, is Joanna Eris, a beautiful con woman. As he performs surveillance on her with the official’s son, he watches in horror as she stabs him repeatedly. From this point, he continues to watches her from afar, always behind her as she travels around the country and changes identities. He follows her as she goes on a murdering streak and is always tempted to do more than watch. Yet, watch he does, even so much as protecting her, making sure to never be noticed.

The thing about Eye of the Beholder is that it starts as a spy film. It starts out stylishly shot. It is about an intelligence agent with high-tech equipment whose job is to spy on people. Where could you possibly foresee that it would turn into a story about two crazy people? You can’t and that is part of why Eye of the Beholder is both a good and disappointing film.

You cannot expect a spy film because Eye of the Beholder is more about obsession than anything else. The Eye, who somehow lost his daughter, hallucinates her presence from time to time. She warns him that he must not lose Joanna like he lost her, leading to his dogged tracking. Joanna obsesses with the father that she was abandoned by, leading her to create a protective seductive persona but also to her vicious vulnerability that makes her prone to violence.

Eye of the Beholder can devolve into boring segments, especially toward the end. Yet, there are also some satisfying scenes, especially the ending, which is one of the finest uses of ‘I Wish You Love’ that there is. ""Eye of the Beholder"" is unconventional. It will not give you the story that you want but it might give you something worth watching.