The Invisible Man

At the cinema after three and a half months (!), during which I watched old quarantine B-movies on a TV screen outside my home, and I immediately got such a great film! This is a very respectable way to catch up on the backlog from the beginning of the year, having already been impressed by Ritchie’s The Gentlemen. Whannell’s The Invisible Man starts off on the principles of ghostly horror, then shifts into a sophisticated paranoid cat-and-mouse game, which culminates in a murder thriller with polished action visuals that will leave you breathless. Each of the film’s three phases demonstrates Whannell’s knowledge of genre rules and the inventiveness of his screenwriting and directing. This isn’t the work of a mere craftsman, as the film contains suspense built brilliantly through only the viewer’s lack of awareness and intense dark music, a shocking twist that will make you hold your breath like nothing (!) you have seen in a long time, creative and intelligent playing with genre clichés, well-thought-out sets and delicate camera acrobatics. And he packs all of this into an admirably bold runtime in order to bring us maximum satisfaction. (08/06/2020)

The much poked-at feminist subtext is effective, of course, but I enjoyed more the smartly transtextual format that hides the invisible male threat. Another great thing is the notional absence of a prologue and the immediate connection to the perspective of a troubled woman who desperately wants to get free from the shackles of her husband – I think the opening sequence is the best part of the whole film. The enemy is profiled gradually, mainly through the dialogues of other characters, the presentation of his lavish mansion and the maturely articulated MeToo campaign, while we are forced to keep our fingers crossed for the heroine from the get go; and in the second half Whannel can stop generating tension mainly through individual scenes (with more references to well-known horror movies than it may appear at first glance and with the lack of a visible enemy) and move on to motifs of surprise and to pique the curiosity through the story as a whole (how did he set it all up and get others to believe Cecilia?). Thanks to the transtextual genre distinctiveness, the film is much more sophisticated than just “abused woman escaping her rich husband” and lets the viewer pose interpretive challenges, but, on the other hand, most questions are answered too soon, or can be easily figured out, and the ending is like mandatory satisfaction rather than a bold resolution to the various genre and motivational concepts. But I have to admit that everything holds very well together and, with the exception of a couple of scenes with questionable effect after a second viewing, this is a superbly directed intersection between classic horror from Universal and a modern genre play with the viewer, the kind of which we don’t see very often. The scene with the paint in the attic and its climax in particular scared me almost as much as the sequence in the ventilation duct of the first Alien. 80% (14/03/2020)

The talented Leigh Whannell delivers the first solid horror film of the year. I liked Upgrade a tad more, but he has done a decent job with Invisible Man, it's already clear that the film will join the ranks of successful remakes. Elisabeth Moss gives a strong female performance (she is one of the least likable actresses and even if she is not the best looking, she at least makes up for it with a solid performance). I'm not familiar with the original, so I went in more or less blind, and the story is interesting and engaging enough. The film's strongest points are definitely the music, which completes the perfect, almost intense atmosphere, there’s plenty of suspense and unexpected twists. The downside for me was the slower pace in the first half, and I was also hoping for Whanell to dabble in violence, which he surprisingly avoids completely, and for that a point down. Satisfied, but I was expecting something more intense. 8/10. (01/03/2020)

This post-MeToo reinterpretation of H.G. Wells's The Invisible Man transforms the subtext of numerous slasher films and paranoid thrillers (toxic masculinity is evil) into the main theme and, unlike the original story, factors in primarily the viewpoint of the victim rather than that of the attacker. The screenplay was written by a man (director Leigh Whannell), though on the basis of consultation with specialists and victims of stalkers and emotional manipulators. In order to take the feminine perspective into consideration as sensitively as possible, Elisabeth Moss was invited to refine the script. The most terrifying part of the film is its first half, which gives us a hint of the hell experienced by the partner of a person with personality disorder even after the (seeming) end of the relationship and patiently reveals the aggressor’s methods. From the ways that Cecilia’s ex-partner psychologically torments her, destroys her career prospects and isolates her from her family and friends in order to intensify her helplessness, the film is chilling in that it shows how easily such methods can be applied in a world where invisibility has yet to be invented. (Due to his ability to assign blame to the victim, the perpetrator of this form of violence often seems to be absent and invisible, someone who does not actually exist). Compared to other, similar films that keep us in a state of uncertainty until the end as to whether the main character is in fact losing touch with reality (in other words, we have the same doubt that a manipulator tries to induce in the victim through gaslighting), here we know from the beginning that Cecilia is in the right and her cognitive abilities are unimpaired, which together with Moss’s performance and the boldly subjective narration strengthens our affinity for her and the frustration arising from the fact that no one believes her, while someone else takes control of her life step by step with a chillingly premeditated plan. Though the second half of the film is closer in nature to a standard splatter film and the psychological persuasiveness more conspicuously gives way to genre conventions, it is still first and foremost about what the protagonist experiences. Thanks to the viewer’s interest in the main character, the film’s climax works superbly. It is satisfying to see who takes the lead in it and how, as well as in how simply and effectively it is directed (which is true of the whole film; instead of visual effects and scares, extremely inventive use is made of the most basic stylistic elements employed by horror filmmakers: silence and empty spaces, slow panoramic shots, well-timed point-of-view shots). It is a horror film that, in revealing some of the sources of today’s social anxieties, is equally as important as Get Out was a few years ago (as we live in a society that is more trusting of those who are good at pretending than it is of the victims of such pretending). 80% (06/03/2020)

The Invisible Man captures your attention thanks to the great atmosphere and, of course, Elisabeth Moss' evocative performance as Cecilia. Unlike most horror films (or thrillers), the film is not based directly on the fear of what we will see, but of what we will not actually see – to put it in a rather trite way – which it manages to do in a very artful way. Together with the protagonist, we look into empty doors or corridors and wait to see who or what will appear. Elisabeth Moss, thanks to her unmistakable looks, was a great choice for the role of a woman who is suddenly not at all sure of what is happening around her and doesn't know if she is slowly losing her mind. Towards the end, I felt that the plot started to lose its breath a bit, but I was more than satisfied with the overall denouement. Last but not least, I have to praise the unmistakable and captivating music, which perfectly completed the dense atmosphere of the film. (05/03/2020)