The first time I saw this movie, I walked out halfway through.
Not, by any means, for the quality. But because I was sincerely, I think, having a panic attack. (If you've watched Ted Lasso, think of the scene when Rebecca is singing "Let It Go" and how Ted has an attack.). This movie is so....distressing and scary in all the right ways.
Elisabeth Moss, continuing her insanely good run of performances, stars as Cecilia, a woman trapped in a controlling and abusive relationship with her boyfriend Adrian, a tech billionaire working on human augmentation. She finally works up the courage to escape and goes to stay with her friend James, a police detective and his teenage daughter. Adrian then apparently commits suicide and leaves her millions and then...
Well, here's where the movie gets really scary to me. Adrian might be dead. He might not. He might have an invisibility suit and be gaslighting Cecilia by making people think she's crazy for thinking he still could be alive. He could be sitting in the chair right there.
Seriously, that's one of the most ominous looking pieces of furniture I've ever seen in a movie.
This movie is a straight-up masterpiece of tone and mood while also having some serious things to say about stalking and gaslighting. The best science fiction uses the tropes and frameworks to say something, and Leigh Wannell (best known for writing the Saw and Insidious movies) does simply great work here getting his concepts across. And my god, this Moss performance. She's great at playing frazzled and scared and working up the courage to do something about her situation.
Look, I know this movie will way too upsetting in certain ways for people who have gone through abuse like this. I would never dismiss anyone's concerns about seeing that on screen. Frankly, this movie is one big trigger warning and even I, who has been lucky enough to never experience that found it very, very upsetting. But as a piece of science fiction and horror, I think it very well might be the best Invisible Man movie. What a great conclusion to this series.
The Invisible Man is currently streaming on Peacock and Fubo.
Comments
Post a Comment