Leigh Whannell's The Invisible Man may not have much in common with its ostensible source material, H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man. But its story should feel familiar all the same.
Elisabeth Moss plays Cecilia, who leaves her abusive husband only to discover she's in more danger than ever before, as Adrian (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) will do anything, up to and including turning himself invisible, to possess her. Worse still, no one around her quite seems to take her concerns seriously; even her well-meaning friends and family believe she's just being paranoid, or imagining things, or becoming unhinged.
It is, in short, a narrative about that oft-cited statistic that leaving an abusive relationship is the most dangerous time for domestic violence victims. It's the truth underlying countless stories about killing sprees and mass shootings, and at the heart of so many true-crime podcasts and documentaries about this grisly murder or that one.
The Invisible Man lives and dies by its tiniest details.
The Invisible Man's challenge is turning that premise into passable entertainment, making room for an exploration of Cecilia's rocky emotional journey and super-cool VFX shots of an invisible dude throwing extras around. That it mostly manages to pull off the latter without trivializing the former is admirable. That both aims are hindered by another issue entirely is a slight disappointment.
From its opening moments, the film lives and dies by its tiniest details. We first meet Cecilia tiptoeing around her own house in the dead of night, carefully gathering her things so she can escape through the front door before Adrian wakes. The scene trains you in The Invisible Man's particular brand of terror: every creak or rustle becomes a cause for panic, every lingering shot into a seemingly still room reason to tense up.
Whannell, who wrote and directed, has a knack for keeping the viewer guessing — lulling us into a false sense of security just to yank us back out of it, or dialing down the intensity just as our frightened anticipation balloons to the point of bursting. The big action spectacles, when we get there, feel worth the wait, as the filmmakers know when to ramp up the dazzling "invisible man" effects and when to pull them back.
The character development proceeds on a similarly meticulous track. Moss is fantastic as usual in the role of Cecilia, showing us the character's jagged edges and her tender spots alike as she gradually pieces herself back together, opens up to her loved ones, and falls apart again. A character who seems unremarkable by design becomes, in her hands, forcefully alive, and worthy of our attention.
Image: Universal Pictures
Aldis Hodge and Storm Reid, likewise, bring warmth and humor to their thinly drawn roles as Cecilia's friend and daughter. Through small kindnesses and grand gestures, they and Moss weave the kind of cozy domestic dynamic that could power Hallmark holiday films — which makes it all the more devastating when Cecilia's horrors begin anew.
But the film's demand that we pay close attention for any sign of the invisible man proves a double-edged sword. Just as his aggressions become harder and harder to ignore, so too do the film's narrative blemishes, from a dog that comes and goes from the story without explanation, to a late reveal that raises way more questions than it answers.
These missteps might be easier to overlook in a busier film, where they might get buried under an avalanche of plot twists and MacGuffins, or a more profound one, where they could be drowned out by powerful emotion or brilliant insight. The Invisible Man, on the other hand, is a simple story told in a relatively realistic visual style. There's nowhere for these blemishes to hide.
Cumulatively, their effect is to cast a shadow over everything else The Invisible Man is trying to accomplish. It's still a solid thriller with some nifty effects, a bunch of well-earned scares, and a riveting lead performance. It deserves credit for taking Cecilia and her plight seriously, and for its inventiveness with the visual and narrative possibilities of invisibility, and for its restraint in both arenas.
But stare at these seemingly empty spaces long enough, and the thoughts that linger are not about the unique challenges of surviving abuse, or the brilliance of using the invisible man as a metaphor, or even the awesomeness of the CG effects in that third-act fight scene. They're about things like how exactly that dog survived long enough to resurface later in the movie. Cecilia could tell you the devil is in the details. The Invisible Man could have used a reminder.
