Rear Window might just be the greatest film Alfred Hitchcock ever made. Not as revered as Vertigo nor as influential as Psycho, the 1954 classic nonetheless has a perfect conceit and is executed flawlessly, all the while passing comment on the inherently voyeuristic nature of cinema. While much of Hitchcock’s work has been imitated ad nauseam, Rear Window is so unique it is almost impossible to emulate. Disturbia (2007) is a rare exception, a kind of adolescent younger brother to Hitchcock’s masterpiece.
Disturbia opens with Kale (Shia LaBeouf) losing his father in a horrific accident on the road. The event sends our hero off the rails and, after attacking his Spanish teacher in class, he is placed under house arrest and forced to wear an ankle monitor at all times. Kale’s mother confiscates his television, games console and just about anything else that might help pass the time. Bored and housebound, like James Stewart in the film that inspired this one, Kale begins to spy on his neighbours and becomes enamoured with the new girl in town, Ashley (Sarah Roemer). More troublingly, another neighbour (David Morse) appears to fit the description of a serial killer mentioned on the news.
The script was actually written in the 1990s but the studio let the option expire after hearing about the remake of Rear Window with Christopher Reeve. The project was revived in 2004, rewritten and sold once more. Executive producer Steven Spielberg pushed hard for LaBeouf to play the lead and director D. J. Caruso sat the actor down in front of Rear Window before filming as well as Straw Dogs, The Conversation and Say Anything… in the hopes of drawing inspiration from this eclectic mix of pictures.
The copyright holders of the short story Rear Window was based on sued Spielberg, Dreamworks and Paramount Pictures for using the source material without permission but a federal judge dismissed the suit due to the wildly different tones. Disturbia is very much a teen movie of its time (it ends with the words, “Soon to be the most popular video on YouTube”, a sentence so 2007 it might as well be found in a Perez Hilton blog entry) and plays up the comedy far more than its inspiration.
This is no masterpiece but it is an intelligent, suspenseful homage to one of the greatest films ever made boosted by smart performances across the board, not least from Morse. The actor refused to speak to any of the teen actors until after filming and his method commitment paid off with a truly frightening turn that elevates some of the more hackneyed material.
