The Invisible Man (2020)

Don’t look now…

(2020) Thriller (Universal) Elisabeth Moss, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Harriet Dyer, Aldis Hodge, Storm Reid, Michael Dorman, Benedict Hardie, Renee Lim, Brian Meegan, Nick Kici, Vivienne Greer, Nicholas Hope, Cleave Williams, Cardwell Lynch, Sam Smith, Zara Michales, Serag Mohammed, Nash Edgerton, Anthony Brandon Wong, Xavier Fernandez, Amali Golden. Directed by Leigh Whannell

 

One of the unexpected side effects of #MeToo is that women are beginning to take back horror. Until recently, they were cast mostly as victims waiting to be slaughtered by a monster or a human monster. Yes, the final girl thing was a bit of a sop, but it was clearly understood that putting women in jeopardy had a sexual element to it. Horror films were often an allegory for how women were perceived in our culture; virtuous and plucky (final girls were almost never sexual) or sexy and not too bright, or at least prone to panicking when the chips were down, playing right into the killer’s hands – often literally.

That’s changing, as yesterday’s horror review illustrated, and it’s even more true of this film, inspired VERY loosely by the 1897 novel of H.G. Wells. Cecilia Kass (Moss) is trapped in an abusive relationship by a controlling billionaire who keeps her under 24/7 surveillance. Pushed to her absolute limit, she plots her escape, aided by her sister Emily (Dyer) who picks her up when she flees from the high-tech home she shares with her domestic partner Adrian Griffin (Jackson-Cohen), just barely getting away. Emily drives her into San Francisco where she bunks with her good friend James (Hodge), who happens to be a cop, and his teenage daughter Sydney (Reid).

Then word reaches her that her ex has committed suicide, and his creepy brother Tom (Dorman) gives her the news that he left her a sizable inheritance, enough to help Sydney with her college plans and to give her some financial relief. Too good to be true, right?

Right. Soon strange things begin to happen, merely annoying at first and growing exponentially more disturbing. Cecilia gets the feeling she’s being watched, and her paranoia only increases. Soon she seems to be coming unhinged, unglued, or at the very least, having a complete breakdown. But WE know that there is something else going on. After all, we saw that knife floating around by itself. We saw the footprints in the carpet. Is it Adrian’s ghost, or something more tangible – and ultimately more terrifying?

As horror films go, this one is long on tension but short on scares. In fact, I think it would be justifiably be considered more of a thriller than an out-and-out horror film, although there are definitely some horrific elements – they are just few and far between.

Whannell seems more intent on making a point than creating a legitimately scary movie. Fortunately, he has one of the best in the world at playing emotionally fragile characters in Elisabeth Moss (who will always be Zoey Bartlet to me) and she gets to exercise that particular skill to near-perfection here. She is certain that something sinister is going on and tells her circle of friends so, but nobody believes her. It’s no accident that her last name is Kass…could be short for “Cassandra.”

She gets some good support from Hodge (who will always be Alec Hardison to me) as the kindly but skeptical cop and Reid (who will always be Meg Murry to me) as the savvy teen. Dorman (who will always be John Tavner to me) lends sufficient creepiness as the late tech billionaire’s brother.

Part of the problem is that we don’t get much of a sense of who Adrian is. He’s essentially brilliant, vindictive and cruel, but we never really get to know much more than that. I tend to like a little more depth to my villains, even if they are ostensibly dead for most of the movie. Plus, there are few scares and that is a bit of a letdown, considering Whannell’s pedigree (he has been involved with two major horror franchises) and the fact that this is using the title of a classic horror movie. The audience can’t help but expect a horror movie when they sit down to watch.

Jilted expectations aside, the movie does a fair job of making its points about how women are portrayed, and although at times Moss can get a bit shrill she still makes a decent enough heroine, particularly in the mega-satisfying denouement. However, I can’t honestly say that the movie made a connection with me and thus I can’t in good conscience give it anything more than a very slight recommendation which is being damned by faint praise indeed.

REASONS TO SEE: Nobody is better than Moss than getting women on the edge of hysteria.
REASONS TO AVOID: The villain was not really developed properly.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some pretty intense violence and profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUITS: This was originally intended to be part of the Dark Universe, Universal’s classic monster-oriented shared cinematic universe, but after the box office failure of The Mummy, the concept collapsed and Universal opted to go with individual stories rather than having a shared background.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AMC On Demand, AppleTV, Cinemax Go, DirecTV, Google Play, HBO Max, Microsoft, Redbox, Spectrum, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 10/28/21: Rotten Tomatoes: 92% positive reviews; Metacritic: 72/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Hollow Man
FINAL RATING: 5.5/10
NEXT: The Continuing Adventures of Six Days of Darkness!

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Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

An expanding family portrait.

(2018) Fantasy (Warner Brothers) Eddie Redmayne, Johnny Depp, Dan Fogler, Zoë Kravitz, Ezra Miller, Alison Sudol, Katherine Waterston, Jude Law, Callum Turner, Claudia Kim, David Wilmot, Brontis Jodorowsky, Jessica Williams, Hugh Quarshie, Isaura Barbé-Brown, Victoria Yeates, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Ingvar Sigurdsson, Derek Riddell, Poppy Corby-Tuech. Directed by David Yates

 

The Harry Potter franchise has been nothing short of a cash cow for Warner Brothers. After Harry’s adventures came to an end, we looked forward with some eagerness to the adventures of New Scamander in a prequel of sorts. When Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them became the expected massive hit, the proposed trilogy was expanded into a five-film series.

Heavy on exposition, the second film in the series has turned out to be a bloated mess. The evil wizard Grindelwald (Depp) has escaped from captivity and looks to continue his quest to amass an army to take over the world and rule all muggles. He has seen a vision of the future and it includes a mushroom cloud, so one can hardly blame him there – we muggles certainly made a hash of things.

Newt Scamander (Redmayne) would rather continue to gather magical beasts from around the world but he is under a travel ban until his old teacher Albus Dumbledore (Law) gives him a new quest – to find Creedence (Miller), the emotionally abused young man from the first film. It turns out that the Ministry of Magic is also after him. And so is Grindelwald. Newt, aided by the woman he loves, American auror Tina Goldstein (Waterston), her ditzy sister Queenie (Sudol) and Queenie’s boyfriend (as well as Newt’s buddy from the first film) Jacob the Baker (Fogler) will have to step lively if they are to find the elusive Creedence, who is searching for his past so he may discover truly who and what he is. He is, for all intents and purposes, the crux of the show.

The tone is distinctly darker here, as most second films of fantasy series’ are. J.K. Rowling’s world-building skills are beyond reproach but I get the sense she was trying to accomplish too much with this film; in addition to the main characters from the first film there are also plenty of new ones running around, so much so that it becomes difficult to determine who’s who and what’s what. The movie gets bogged down in plot exposition and character development, eschewing action a little bit too much.

The special effects are wondrous, of course, as you would expect. There are plenty of amazing creature effects here, both CGI and practical. The cast does it’s level best but I got the sense that they, too, were confused by what was going on behind them. The third film, after the disappointing reviews and box office of this film, is being retooled but hopefully it will right the course for the series which has made a most definite misstep.

REASONS TO SEE: The beasties continue to be nifty.
REASONS TO AVOID: Underwhelming performances and plot.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some brief violence.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT:  Newt Scamander’s basement, where he keeps his beasts, was inspired by an M.C. Escher print (Relativity).
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AMC On Demand, AppleTV, Fandango Now, Google Play, HBO Now, Microsoft, Redbox, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 4/8/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 36% positive reviews, Metacritic: 52/100
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Eragon
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Mowgli

Home

Marcia Gay Harden has just told this little girl that kids suck.

(Monterey Media) Marcia Gay Harden, Eulala Scheel, Michael Gaston, Candy Buckley, Pamela Jane Henning, Paul F. Nolan, Thomas Roy, Marian Seldes. Directed by Mary Haverstick

Home is where the heart is. Have you ever stopped to examine that statement? It’s meant to convey that home is the hearthstone where love resides, but the heart is so much more complicated. It is the source of everything from love to hate. If home is where the heart is, home is where the hate is as well.

Inga (Harden) is a housewife in 1969’s Eastern Pennsylvania in an area that is predominantly Amish. She is a breast cancer survivor, but that was child’s play compared to what’s going on in her house. Her workaholic husband Herman (Gaston) scarcely pays attention to her anymore. The two of them constantly bicker. She takes solace in her close-knit relationship with her daughter Indigo (Scheel) but even that is strained lately.

Inga turns to comfort from the bottle, and that strains the relationship with her daughter even further. The cancer has made a re-appearance, and Inga can’t help but dwell on the last days of her mother (Buckley), wasting away from cancer and morphine addiction, particularly as she tours the house of an elderly woman (Seldes) whose home reminds her of her childhood abode. She wanders through the home, flashing back to her childhood and is more than eager to purchase the home and restore it, but Herman, whose business is failing, refuses and the battle begins anew.

Much of the narration is done through poetry, ostensibly written by Inga but in reality written by the filmmakers mother, Mary Stuart Haverstick. There’s no doubt that the movie is inspired at least in part by the filmmaker’s own experience and it shows in some of the raw emotion of several of the scenes.

Inga is a marvelous mom when she is sober, flying kites and lying in beautiful grassy fields with her daughter, watching the clouds blow past (is there anything more wonderful than a summer’s day in a grassy field, watching clouds with your mom?) but when she drinks, she is Beelzebub. She lashes out at her daughter and all the demons, all the disappointments and frustration come burbling up to be spewed at the most defenseless one in the house.

This is a treatise on home and motherhood, and to the credit of writer/director Haverstick this essay is unflinching and honest, perhaps to a fault. What it also is (occasionally) is maudlin and melodramatic. There are times I wondered if I was watching the Lifetime Movie Channel; this would fit in nicely there.

For my part, I found Harden’s performance to be outstanding. In most other years there would be some Oscar buzz for it, but this came out during a particularly strong year for actress performances; that and because it was distributed by a smaller outfit, it was little seen outside of New York. Nonetheless, as flawed as it is (and it is), there is much to recommend Home for cinephiles. Movies like this can capture your attention and imagination, leading to further reflection on the meaning of home and the relationship between a mother and her child. A movie that inspires you to think? The horror!

WHY RENT THIS: Harden gives a tremendous performance. The film carries a very authentic feeling for the most part.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: A bit on the melodramatic side, and sometimes sinks to a Lifetime movie-of-the-week level.

FAMILY VALUES: There are some disturbing scenes, particularly one in the final third of the movie when Harden goes on a drunken rant against her daughter. Some children may find the things she says to her daughter disturbing.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Scheel is Harden’s daughter in real life.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.

FINAL RATING: 6/10

TOMORROW: Twilight