Roman (Héctor Alterio), a successful architect married to the beautiful—and much younger—Elena (Alexandra Bastedo), should have little to complain about. Yet Roman is unhappy, for what turns him on is watching Elena have sex with other men. But as much as Elena wants to fulfill her husband’s voyeuristic fantasies, she just can’t get into Roman’s kink. It turns out, however, that Elena is only resistant to fooling around with the men her husband chooses for her. She’s much more open to extramarital play when she attracts the attention of her neighbor’s hot young lover (Pep Munné).
El mirón (a.k.a. The Voyeur) has the potential to be a twisted psychosexual drama and given that it’s written and directed by José Ramon Larraz one should expect it to be quite twisted indeed. But El mirón wasn’t directed by Vampyres or Black Candles Larraz. No, it was directed by the Larraz who gave us La muerte incierta and Symptoms, which is to say that if you’re expecting lots of nudity, graphic sex and unapologetic sleaze, you won’t find those things here. Instead, we have a meditative arthouse drama about a middle-aged man torn between being aroused watching his wife fuck middle-aged men and being insanely jealous when she, um, cheats (?) on him with a sexy younger man.
And it still might have worked had Roman and Elena been more compelling characters or had Larraz followed through with some teases of a more violent climax. Instead, El mirón is only mildly engaging. That the scenes of Elena’s tense exchanges with her sourpuss mother-in-law (Aurora Rodondo) are more entertaining than any of the movie’s sex scenes should tell you all you need to know.
