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The
Invisible
(2007)
After the success of last year's high school
noir Brick, it's no surprise to see another noirish
teen flick with a paranormal slant. Horror film always have
been a staple for teen audiences. But The Invisible is
not so much horror or noir as it is a fairly basic late-spring
seatfiller to warm the seats for the summer's big-hitters.
There are a lot of great and promising things to be found in
this film, but they're all counteracted or outweighed by the
parts that, if they're there at all, seem to be invisible themselves.
For high school seniors Nick (Justin Chatwin) and Annie (Margarita Levieva), life is a struggle to be known for who they really are. Nick is a successful and popular student, but his dream of being a writer are constantly dashed by his emotionally-distant mother (Marcia Gay Harden). At the same time, Annie is the definition of a teenage deviant, involved in fights, extortion, car theft, and eventually murder, but was dealt a bad hand and her soft heart is all but non existent to the outside observer. When Nick dies in a violent beating, he finds himself a sort of ghost, trapped between worlds, interacting with the living, but with no results. As he discovers that he’s not completely dead yet, he must use his uncommon bond with Annie to save himself.
While the film, a remake of the Swedish film Den Osynlige, markets itself as a run-of-the-mill teen thriller, it’s a much more psychologically complex picture than other films in the genre. Primarily, we see the intricacies of the relationship that develops between Annie and Nick, and it’s not what you’d suspect. It happens pretty early in the film, so I don’t feel too bad revealing that Annie is Nick’s supposed killer. This fact opens the door to a unique take on the classic Stockholm Syndrome story (it was a Swedish film originally, after all), wherein the victim and abuser form an unlikely bond. In this case, Annie is the only person with whom Nick can communicate, and her ability to hear him increases as her guilt grows. And while she is the only one who can save him from death, Nick somehow starts Annie on a path to saving herself from her troubled life through her regret from his murder.
In many ways Annie is the film’s central character, being the most interesting, and the one who undergoes the most change throughout the story. Early attempts to humanize her, like showing her tenderness toward her younger brother (Alex Ferris) and her dysfunctional home life, fall short but succeed in developing her more than Nick, who is the supposed protagonist. Her character is further, and more effectively, expanded as the film progresses, and the strong performance by Levieva drew me to Annie much more than I was attracted to Nick. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t fully utilize her character, and doesn’t pay off either of the story’s interesting relationships, those between Annie and Nick, and Annie and her brother.
Further disappointing me, and continually taking me out of the film, was the annoyingly emo soundtrack. Not only did it not fit with the thrilling tone of the film, but it was also completely incongruous with the sometimes gripping (though never groundbreaking) score by Marco Beltrami. The Invisible would be better served with a score only, and no sappy source music, as it pushes the film back into the teen thriller genre which is succeeds fairly well at climbing out of on its own merits alone.
In all, The Invisible is a fun time, and provides something new to filmgoing audiences, tired of the same old same old. It’s not a perfect film, but it’s not hard to overlook the invisible elements given the clarity and quality of the parts that are present. It might not be a film you need to rush out and see in the theaters, but it’s worth your time on video at least.
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2004-2009 Thoughtsonfilm.com |
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Director:
David
S. Goyer
Writer: Mick
Davis, Christine Roum, Mats Wahl
Starring: Justin
Chatwin, Margarita Levieva, Marcia Gay Harden, Chris Marquette,
Alex O'Loughlin, Callum Keith Rennie
Distributor: Hollywood
Pictures
Runtime: 97
min
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: April
27, 2007
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