Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Film myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.The rolling debate about “nepo babies” in film and TV lately reignited when the actor Maya Hawke, daughter of Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke, publicly shrugged at the label. “I’m comfortable with not deserving it and doing it anyway,” Hawke told an interviewer. The conversation may be kept simmering by The Watched (released in the US as The Watchers), the big-screen debut of writer-director Ishana Shyamalan, working at unusual scale for a 24-year-old first-time filmmaker, with Warner Bros backing the movie, and her father, veteran director M Night Shyamalan, acting as producer.The family brand was built on eerie high concepts meant to get the head scratching. Here, your first puzzled squint may come with the set-up around Mina (Dakota Fanning), an American expat in Ireland, working in a Galway pet shop, who’s sent to hand-deliver a rare parrot to a “zoo near Belfast”. That everyday journey instead takes her to a sinister forest from where escape proves impossible, leaving the film free to whip up shivery vibes and mysterious strangers. The rest sees hints of interesting ideas about mass entertainment compete with lore-ish hokum, and some concussively literal-minded dialogue. (“It’s a door,” a character says, helpfully.) The twist? Shyamalan is clearly not untalented. She will also doubtless go on to make better movies.★★☆☆☆In UK and US cinemas from June 7
