Rear Window
Acceptable with guidance. Age: 13+. A Catholic review of this movie for parents.
Our review
Jeff is a photographer with a broken leg who must stay in his room. He watches his neighbors out the window and thinks one of them did something terrible. His friend Lisa bravely helps him find out the truth. The ending is scary, and the movie is best for teens and grown-ups. This is one of the best-made thrillers ever filmed, and it is about a sin most thrillers never notice: prying into other people's lives. The film itself calls us a race of peeping toms, and then rewards the peeping by making Jeff right. That is the conversation to have. Expect an unseen murder with talk of a cut-up body, a dead dog, a lonely woman who nearly takes her life, a forced kiss, a dancer in her underwear, and steady smoking and drinking.
For parents
Common Sense Media says 10 and up. Lumen says Teens & Up, in line with Christian Spotlight (mature teens) and Parent Previews (parents and teens). The reason is the themes: a wife murdered and dismembered off screen, a neighbor on the edge of suicide, an attempted assault, and an implied unmarried relationship. The Catechism asks everyone to keep an appropriate reserve about other people's private lives (CCC 2492). Jeff does not, and the plot proves him right. Say plainly that a good result does not make spying good. Ask: when does Jeff stop being a snoop and start being a neighbor? Why does no one in the courtyard notice the lonely neighbor who is in trouble? The essay in the Georgia Bulletin ties the film to the Sermon on the Mount: we study our neighbor's faults and miss our own. Does that fit Jeff? What is he avoiding by watching?