In the 2019 thriller I See You, Helen Hunt plays Jackie Harper, a woman who cheated on her husband Greg (Jon Tenney) and whose child Connor (Judah Lewis) hates her because of it. The movie seems clever and the family is definitely going through some hard times, but for the first part of the film, it doesn't seem that interesting or like anything is brand new.
Everything changes when audiences get to the incredible plot twist that will leave thriller fans thinking for days. It's best to go into the movie without knowing anything at all as I See You won't disappoint those looking for a different take on a thriller that has it all, from family drama to events that seem to be supernatural but have a much more exciting explanation. I See You is an indie thriller with a great twist and there are many reasons to love this film.
At first, I See You feels like a fairly straightforward thriller. It make sense that The Woman in the House... makes fun of horror and thriller tropes because there's so much to work with. Weird things are happening in Jackie's house and it definitely seems like a ghost is behind them: there's a mask under Connor's bed, forks and knives disappear, and a guy shows up saying that he's going to fix the window and that Jackie's daughter opened the door for him.
Since Jackie only has a son, this is a problem. When Connor is attacked, Jackie drives him to get help at the hospital and then a person wearing a mask with a frog on it approaches Greg in the house. Hunt excels in this role and while she's hilarious as the quirky character Jamie in the '90s sitcom Mad About You, Hunt does well playing a terrified mother worried about the odd situation that her family has been put into. All of this is interesting and terrifying, but if the movie continued in this direction, it wouldn't be anything to write home about. But then the plot twist happens and the movie becomes one of the most creative and inventive thrillers of the past few years.
There are several amazing '90s horror movie twists and the way that the story changes in I See You is just as smart. It turns out that two young adults, Alec (Owen Teague) and Mindy (Libe Barer), have been living in the house and that's why these weird things have taken place. They are "phroggers" and while Mindy has done this before and she wants to have a place to live without anyone seeing her, Alec believes that it would be fun for Greg, Jackie, and Connor to believe that they're imagining things. According to Urban Dictionary, the definition of "phrogging" is "a person secretly living in another person's home." The website explains that the people doing this are called "phrogs" because they "'hop; around from house to house, as a frog might do on a lily pad."
While the Netflix thriller The Perfection does a bad job with its twist, I See You rewinds the events of the first half of the film and the storytelling is intelligent and works perfectly. Fans of the horror and thriller genre will appreciate that the plot twist feels clever and unexpected and it's impossible to guess that this is where the movie was heading. I See You is a welcome change from thrillers that feel like they are the same as everything that has come before it.
Throughout I See You, there is another storyline about kids who keep getting kidnapped and kept somewhere out of sight. There is another twist at the end of the movie: Greg is the one responsible and he tried to hurt Alec when Alec was younger and Alec was able to escape. The idea that Jackie has been married to someone who has been hurting kids is absolutely horrifying and worse than any horror that the family has experienced throughout the movie. When a villain hides in plain sight, it's often the most fascinating and also the scariest thing that could happen.
This twist also turns the idea of who the movie's villain is on its head. While for part of the movie, audiences think that Jackie is a jerk because she cheated on her husband, they then learn that it's Greg who has done some unforgivable things. Thankfully, I See You isn't a horror film with the villain winning, as it would be horrible for Greg to get away with his crimes. Greg is murdered and everyone finds out about the evil that he has done. With so many great thrillers over the past few decades, I See You deserves praise for being incredibly fresh and unique.