Lady Voyeur (Olhar Indiscreto) is the latest Brazilian Portuguese steamy thriller released as a limited series on January 1, 2023, on Netflix. It stars Débora Nascimento, Emanuelle Araújo, Ângelo Rodrigues, Nikolas Antune and more, and has been written by Marcela Citterio and Camila Raffanti. Directed by Luciana Oliveira, Fabrizia Pinto and Leticia Veiga, the show is rated ‘A’ and has ten episodes with runtime for each ranging between 35-49 minutes.
Netflix’s official description of the series reads:
A talented, voyeuristic hacker finds herself thrust into a dangerous investigation after her sex worker neighbor leaves for a weekend trip
-Lady Voyeur Review Does Not Contain Spoilers-
The titular lady has it out for watching people without being seen and ever since Cleo moved into the apartment across her window, “it’s been more interesting to watch”. Hacking into surveillance cameras and everything of the sort comes easy to her as she’s willing to go to any lengths, just to peer into her neighbour’s life while she tends to her clients.
Lady Voyeur starts off at the brink of new year’s inception on December 31 when the eponymous character aka Miranda agonises over her life after having fallen for two men, while one of them fell to the insidious track of the thriller. As she blames herself for what befell one of her lovers, she too is attacked by a hooded figure, but soon the timeline jumps back to walk us through her life three months ago when she met Fernando, one of Cleo’s clients who’s also partnered up with her to investigate a dangerous sex trafficking ring possibly run by the second man introduced to Miranda, Heitor, who has his own set of secrets up his sleeve.
So, what’s happening in the series as a whole? Giving into one’s pleasures of course, infidelity, backstabbing tracks, betrayals, murders, accidents that aren’t really accidents, the protagonist’s shadowed traumatic past, toxicity and more toxicity. You get the drill, especially since everyone has to have festering secrets (which have no one surprised). The entire series is nothing more than an extension of the 2021 erotic thriller The Voyeurs (Prime Video) starring Sydney Sweeney, Justice Smith and more. The only difference is that the trajectory of this particular plot has been stretched out into a 10-episode series, and has even more twisted families.
The series gives it all to involve all kinds of dramatic elements, and here I am mentioning only the first episode, but all the talks and graphic content pertaining to sexual gratification are severely frustrating. Building up the image of the series from such a reductive angle, it’s like Netflix has no plans of salvaging good stories and is only interested in clearing up its catalogue for such content. What’s even worse is that you’ve to continue watching this series for yet another 9 episodes (you can always skip away to better series, and you should).
Moreover, the main characters are trying so hard to come on top as the excessive brooding personas to enhance their appeal, which all falls flat because no matter which turn you take, it all leads to the bedroom or other locations for the one act that we’re tired of witnessing nearly every episode down the list.
Even if I wanted to focus on the element of the underlying mystery, the series made it a point not to let me have that moment, rendering me unable to see through the supposed dark veneers of the plot to find anything worth taking away as a positive response. And it’s even worse for the one chief police, Ines Cardoso, heading the investigation, because she seems to be the only one concerned with exploring the mysterious side to this otherwise over saturated erotic malarkey.
The second half still gives its all to pick up the numerous pieces of the puzzle and make do of the most it can salvage. However, one can’t help but ask oneself, just how much more can this further tip into the toxic domain? The answer is, it just keeps going, and the last few episodes drag along the same dirt.
Lady Voyeur: Final Thoughts
A show with a title like that streaming on Netflix means only one thing, and you don’t even have to watch the series to uncover what it is. Yes, there’s a bit of an underlying mystery that was supposed to add on to the thrilling aspect of the storyline, but that is pushed to the background with the overt visuals of the plot concerned with mere steamy sequences. A show like this dropping on the first day of a new start is no good because all it does is fall back into old bad habits.
What happened to following the list of one’s superficial new year’s resolutions at least for the first week before they all drown away anyway? Netflix probably has no plans of even keeping up with the good facade. With a thousand interconnections between characters who seemingly shared no relation with each other in the beginning (but obviously did), this looks like yet another nauseating Wattpad story that got inspired by the Fifty Shades of Grey saga, something that we never asked for.
Lady Voyeur is now streaming on Netflix.
Also read: The Way of the Househusband Season 2 Review: A Warm and Chaotic Start to the New Year!
Finally a review I agree with. Unbelievably, Rotten tomatoes – usually a good guide for me – rated it very highly.
In addition to everything you mentioned, the scripted dialogue might have been better written by my 10 year old grandson.
I found the storyline somewhat confusing – it jumped qiute a bit to let us view some of the dysfunctions the characters suffered from in their family and in thhe past. The main actress Debora Nascimiento seen from certain agles looks like an everyday woman and then from others quite attractive and sensual – but I liked her. The scenarios explained past tragedies and murders and if you stick with it gradualy a coherent picture emerges though some details are left out or are innnecplicable. There are numerous sexual scenes though th emovie does not go completely graphic – still you have a fair ammount of curvaceous anatomy to take home with you and scenes which cover incest, triangles, a BDSM orgy but again just when you think it will get hot scenes are viewed from a distance or out of focus and so forth; but despite all that I think you might be left with some interesting meories if you are not too particular. If you can handle all that it might be of interest but it does drift a little. My thoughts – a slightly dreeper story line and if there are numerous sex scene perhaps they could be more honest, slower camera work on th ebeauty of th enaked body and more explicit sexual activity – but thats me.