Gaslighting With Gasoline

Conditions: Separated.

Film Review: The Invisible Man

Normally, the Invisible Man is a film about a guy who by accident or design becomes totally invisible and can't return to normal.  Stuck in this state, he starts to become detached from society and eventually bad things start to happen.  This film, despite the title, is completely not like that at all.  In an attempt to re-imagine the idea of the Invisible Man, this version has been literally turned on it's head.  So much so, it's not even really about the Invisible Man.

We start at night in a very modern house.  Our main protagonist is Cecilia, played by Elisabeth Moss.  Cecilia, as is clear from the opening shot, is terrified of her boyfriend and has put together a plan to escape his fortress-like house tonight.  But in eventually doing so, she really has only begun to deal with her psychopathic ex Adrian, who also just happens to be an optics engineer and businessman.  And after finding shelter at a friends house, before long we get the spooky feeling that somehow, Adrian is here.  Watching her.  He wants her back, and as we all learn, he will literally stop at nothing to ruin her life and reputation as she tries to rebuild herself, to make her crawl back to him.

It's very clever what they've done here.  By twisting the story around to be about a woman on the run they've made the Invisible Man into a proper kind of monster, who we can't even see let alone get his perspective of events.  But his presence is everywhere, looking over every scene as we become more convinced he's doing more than stalking his ex.  And the filmmakers know exactly how to wind the tension up and up as this seemingly simple tale of a woman trying to get people to believe her tightens into a complicated survival thriller.  This feels like a short movie, because before too long we're into the big finale as Cecilia is fighting for her life against an invisible mad man.

I won't give too much away, because it's been crafted so well, but there's some brilliant shocks, hardly any cheap scares, and an amazing twist ending that deserves applause.  They really found the key dramatic conflict of the story and focused on that.  The effects are fine, but they're not the main point of the film.  And it's so refreshing to have a film made that's more interested in character conflict rather than storms of pixels splashing across the screen.  Five floating knives out of five.

- peace out