Disturbia

This fairly well done 2007 remake of the 1950 Alfred Hitchcock classic Rear Window has all the basic elements of the original: a protagonist temporarily trapped in his house, a mad murderer of women, voyeurism, temperate eroticism, detective work, suspense. The main difference between this remake and the original (aside from the 57 years that have passed, the contemporary suburban world of the remake vs. the same world circa 1950 of the original) is that the remake is of and for teenagers. Shia LeBoeuf plays a disaffected young man named Kale Brecht who feels responsible for his father's death in an auto accident. After he slugs his mathematics teacher, he is sentenced to three months house arrest and is saddled with an ankle bracelet that notifies the police if he strays more than 100 feet from his house. Add to that the fact that the policeman assigned to his neighborhood is the cousin of the teacher he slugged. Add to that the beautiful teenage girl, Ashley (Sarah Roemer) who has just moved in next door. Add to that Shia'a sometimes inattentive and imperceptive mother (Carrie Ann Moss). Add to that Shia's best friend Ronnie (Aaron Yoo), an Asian teenager with a love of jokes, pranks, and cameras. Add to that the predominantly night-time scenes and the murky subterranean pool beneath the basement of the next door neighbor's house. All of these play into the relatively predictable plot. What really made the 1950 film Rear Window was the interplay between Grace Kelly and Jimmy Stewart. Kelly infused the film with an incredible eroticism solely by inference, by subtle suggestion. Although there is no sex per se in the remake, there much thinking about it by the two teenage boys, who spend much time staring at Ashley sunbathing in her bikini or her cut-off shorts or undressing in her bedroom, as well as at the ominous movements of the neighbor on the other side of the house. Whereas in Rear Window Stewart's character is watching his neighbors in a desultory way, to pass the time, in Disturbia (be sure to get the interplay with "Surburbia"—hardly the sort of playful, subtle linguistic bawdry possibly implied by the title of the 1950 film) the teenage boys are deeply engaged in voyeuristic fascination with the girl. Their interest in the man who lives on the other side of the house, and who might be a notorious serial killer of women, is at first incidental. Only gradually does it become more central. This is an entertaining film, but the fact that it is presented as a teenage film, with all the usual trappings of teenage films intended to lure and hold a teenage audience (our hero has to rescue his girl, rescue his mother, rescue his best friend, and then he has to kiss kiss kiss his girl), and with no real attempt to transcend those limitations, prevents it from rising very far above the mundane average. A friend of mine observed that what most irritated him about this film was that he had to watch the young hero and his girlfriend kissing: "I'm too old to enjoy that." Well, perhaps, in the spirit of the voyeurism of both the original and the remake, I won't go that far. But kissing was not the focus of the original, and the fact that, in the remake, it is the focus pretty much explains the difference between the two.