31 Days of Horror: The Invisible Man (2020)

Directed by Leigh Whannell.

2020. Rated R, 124 minutes.

Cast: Elisabeth Moss, Aldis Hodge, Storm Reid, Harriet Dyer, Michael Dorman, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Nash Edgerton.

    We meet Cecilia (Moss) on the night she is trying to escape from Adrian (Jackson-Cohen), her very wealthy, but abusive husband. With the help of her sister Emily (Dyer), and not as cleanly as she would have liked, Cecilia gets away. Emily hides her at James's (Hodge) house, a mutual friend who lives with his teenage daughter Sydney (Reid). James is also a police officer. Understandably traumatized, Cecilia refuses to take even one step outside the house. James pep talks her every day and she builds a bond with Sydney. Things change immediately when Emily visits with news that Adrian has died. The two of them go to the reading of the will and find that Adrian has left her $5 million contingent upon her staying out of legal trouble. Throughout all this we find out that Adrian made his money as an optics engineer. This is important because soon after the will reading, Cecilia starts experiencing things that convince her Adrian has found a way to make himself invisible in order to continue tormenting her.

    The use of invisibility attacks the reality of battered women from two angles. We, as an audience, understand right away, that Adrian is harassing and trying to control every aspect of Cecilia's life. She is being preyed upon both physically and psychologically. Other people in the movie, naturally, have a hard time believing any of this. As far as they're concerned, Adrian is dead and this is all in her head. This speaks to the fact that women have a hard time being believed when they tell people about the terrible things happening to them. This is particularly true when the man in question is rich, powerful, and well respected. It's enough to make the people around her question Cecilia's sanity. The question the movie poses is how long before she begins to question herself.

    While social commentary shines through the film, director Leigh Whannell never forgets this is a horror flick. He pulls from the Paranomal Activity handbook and improves it greatly to make his film work on a surface level. Things go bump in the night and seem to move on their own. When our unseen assailant interacts with humans it's forceful and violent. Because of this, the first scene of the villain in all his glory, the kitchen fight, is a sight to behold. Cecilia is fighting for her life, furniture flies across the room, things break in mid-air smashing against something we can't see. Later in the film, the ante is upped for the hospital scene. All of the things from the kitchen reoccur, but two things are added. First, there are more people around. Second, our villain is going in and out of visibility. These scenes are where action, science fiction, and horror meet. Our nerves are jangled, yet we're magnetized to the screen. 

     Special fx are not enough to make a movie great by themselves. We need to something to grasp our heart while our eyes are dazzled. Elisabeth Moss handles the job and facilitates our way into the story. She's not just a frantic woman, though that's certainly a part of her character. Sure, she's victimized and terrorized, but she's also learning her situation. The hardest part, which calls back to the commentary part of the movie, is getting someone on her side. Moss makes us feel the frustration in every aspect of Cecilia's rapidly decaying life. She's gifted audience empathy right at the very beginning because of her initial situation. Moss, and the film itself through the writing, doesn't rest on these laurels. It builds on them to the point where our anxiety nearly matches hers. 

    Moss is not alone in her excellence. Aldis Hodge, who plays James, has been an underrated performer for some time and again proves his worth, here. He makes James a sympathetic character in his own right. We understand his confusion and admire his intense loyalty. Hodge sells all of it. The two other ladies in the principal cast fare even better. Storm Reid plays Sydney and gets us on her side, as well. Reid is only 17 (16 when filming), and has already proven to be a good actress. I'm excited to see what she'll do in the future. Of the supporting cast, however, it's Harriet Dyer as Cecilia's sister Emily who is the standout. She is the least sympathetic of the bunch, until her situation very suddenly changes, mostly because her patience wears thin before anyone else's. Dyer makes it so that we get her frustration, so we never dislike her. We dislike the collective distrust of Cecilia.

    Leigh Whannell also wrote and through these characters he pulls off his greatest trick. We really do hate that no one wants to believe Cecilia. However, our frustration is not taken out on any of the main characters. We hate authority figures who show up, but not because of themselves. We hate the system they represent. It all works to make sure we are active members of Cecilia's cheering squad. We will support whatever course of action she decides to take. This is crucial to the film's success. And we buy it, hook, line, and sinker.

    To this point, I haven't mentioned 1933's The Invisible Man. That's because this is clearly a re-imagining, not a remake. It retains only one character, sort of (we go from Jack Griffin to Adrian Griffin). This version flips that one completely on its head. It isn't about some poor man longing to get back to his true love. It's about what the world seems to be about. It's about men with money and power trying to control others, especially the women in their lives. 2020's version of The Invisible Man does a masterful job of being about that.