The Invisible Man

This review may contain spoilers!

This film boasts a real stylistic flair but is let down by the weak dialogue and formulaic plot. I would give The Invisible Man a 6.5/10.

The Invisible Man follows a woman, Cecelia, who escapes an abusive relationship only for her ex-boyfriend to take his own life. However, when Cecelia begins to be plagued by random events that ruin her life she begins to suspect her boyfriend might not actually be dead. This film really knows how to negotiate its theme really well, opening a strong discussion about abusive relationships, manipulation and recovery. Throughout the film you really get inside the main character's head and come to understand how controlled she felt, she was constantly questioning whether her actions were her own or if they could ever be again. I think the film really showed some of the positive aspects of real recovery in the first act while also doing a spectacular job of showing a figure who has been abused claiming power over her abuser come the end of the feature. I think by finding a story in which this female protagonist is being assailed by a man who holds an almost supernatural power over her and watching her find a way to trump him opened us to a concept that is a really worthy talking point. This film took what you expect from an Invisible Man film and really made it its own. The cinematography for the feature had some repetitive space but manipulated empty space well to aid mounting tension, the camera toys with perception which I felt really enhanced the experience. The special effects weren't the most inspired I'd ever seen but certainly achieved what they were there to do, probably the best aspect was the cybernetic design of the Invisible Man suit. The score for the film was this bass noise that completely drowned and overwhelmed you, I liked this because it enhanced the mental health discussion for those scenes and left the audience feeling as trapped as the main character.

Oliver Jackson-Cohen, who played Adrian Griffin, is truly psychotic as the main antagonist; he works so well because it feels like he has this malice just coiled up beneath the surface of his charismatic facade. Aldis Hodge, who played James Lanier, has a nice chemistry with Moss as her role's best friend/recovery support; Hodge is probably the most charismatic of the cast and has a very likeable dynamic in the majority of his scenes. Michael Dorman, who played Tom Griffin, almost worked even better in his antagonist role than the main guy; Dorman was duplicitous and really negotiated and manipulated in his scenes very well.

However, the best performance came from Elisabeth Moss, who played Cecelia Kass. Moss isn't an actress I've seen in a lot of things but in everything I have seen her in she has knocked it out of the park. This film was no different to that, Cecelia was a complex role that Moss really brought a lot to. Throughout the Invisible Man we watch Cecelia grapple with an ever-present fear that she'll never be free of the man who manipulated and controlled her. Moss takes a very practical approach to depicting a survivor's story, making her paranoia and hysteria all the more arresting to watch. I enjoyed that the character had this stubborn resolve to prove herself right which became a journey to defending herself, ultimately leading to her fighting back and triumphing against her abuser. Moss takes this character on a journey of self-perseverance, she seizes back her very life which is such a great character arc to watch.

As much as I loved this film stylistically and conceptually I do feel the film really let itself down with a script that didn't match the thought behind it. The overall story became very formulaic very quick; the hero leaves a normal danger and becomes safe, supernatural danger occurs and the stakes heighten, hero uses the antagonists' weakness or own power against them to win. This just felt like the general framework plot for a lot of the horror/thrillers we're watching come out at the moment and it's entirely underwhelming. As an audience member I start to predict narrative beats far too quickly and the story loses the element of surprise, which matters a lot in any good thriller story. Another major issue was the dialogue, the whole film needed a lot more work in that regard. A lot of the lines are very superficial, generic statements that you would expect in any horror movie. This just made the characters look a lot more two-dimensional and really limited the actors. Not to mention there were a number of scenes that felt poorly blocked out in terms of delivery; moments like Cecelia gifting a ladder/money to James and Sydney or the big restaurant scene with Cecelia and Emily.

Harriet Dyer, who played Emily Kass, really seemed unable to find her way to a role that didn't feel two-dimensional at best; her stony expressions and hostile persona never went through change and Dyer never aimed for anything other than what the script fed her. Storm Reid, who played Sydney Lanier, is an upcoming performer that I'm really not all that excited about; she had a pretty boring role in A Wrinkle In Time and this film was equally quite a muted, generic character.