The Invisible

There is nothing new about using teen angst as a theme for a movie. These tumultuous and hyper emotional years have been fodder for story lines probably since man drew their tales on the walls of caves. Because of this it is difficult to come up with any novel angle to employ. Director David S. Goyer has come up with something that has not been overly explored with this supernatural thriller, ‘The Invisible’. The hook here is the youthful anguish straddles a shadowy existence lying between life and death. Based on Dutch film, Den Osynlige it suffers from affects many such transplants; a dilution of the intensity of the work. What does manager to help out here is a director who knows his way around darker subject matter and a cast that was able to get the story off the ground. This is a moody piece that depends on style a bit more than substance. Now that is not necessarily a negative comment. A film can work on the visual level even if the story is somewhat contrived. In some ways it resembles a television mystery series where the audience is privy to all the secrets and watches the characters try to piece the clues together. The script is not really that bad, it’s cleaver in places. The problem is I have seen the original film and this film have been softened to make it as a PG-13 American flick. If more of the original edginess was retained in perhaps a R format it would have faired better. I’m not advocating more sex or violence as the additions just that it would have been better targeted to a late teen/adult audience.

The film opens with a pan shot down through a secluded wooded area. There is a home there, something that would put the houses in MTV Cribs to shame. A party is in progress to celebrate the impending high school graduation of Nick Powell (Justin Chatwin). Hosting the gathering is Nick’s mother, Diane (Marcia Gay Harden). Right away you can tell that Nick is going to have some sort of mother issues. Mom’s toast for her son extols the hardships she has faced since his father died; how difficult it is to raise a teenager on her own and the best one, he is a good boy, now. This toast alone is worth a good couple of years of therapy. Despite this Nick is actually a sensitive young man who enjoys quiet time and writing poetry. He’s not the absolute perfect son; he does make some extra cash selling term papers to jocks. Nick wants to study overseas (I wonder why) but mother is not sure he should be so far away. During one of the last days at school a friend of Nick’s Pete (Chris Marquette) is held down by two school toughs who proceed to rob him. Another figure enters and what appears to be a slightly built boy in a zipped up jacket and wool cap is actually a girl, Annie Newton (Margarita Levieva). After disappointedly examining the contents of his pockets she slips the blade of her knife under one finger nail and the three toughs leave.

Pete continues with the rest of his day including having lunch with Nick, seeing his attackers at another table. It appears that Pete has some financial problem with the violent group. Nick tries to pay off the money Pete owes them. Before he leaves Nick leans towards Annie and whispers ‘you are so broken’. As he walks away Annie leaps on Nick’s back and starts to pummel him. They wind up sitting next to each other in an empty office where Nick notices the tough girl has a Muppet band aide on her finger; an odd juxtaposition. Annie’s home life is a dumping apartment with a lazy mother (Desiree Zurowski), father (Mark Houghton) on night shift and little brother (Alex Ferris). She grabs a meager meal and goes out to rob a car with her older, tattooed boyfriend (Alex O'Loughlin). Later she gets arrested for the car theft. That night Annie finds Nick and pushes him against a fence sure that he turned her in. While walking home from a party Nick is pushed into a car with Annie and her friends. They take him into the wooded area, she beats him almost to death and they leave him there to die. The thing is he isn’t quite dead yet and his spirit is trapped between life and death; drawn to Annie.

Nick is able to roam around fairly normally except that no one can see him. He has to find out the truth behind his impending death. He has to get his body discovered and resuscitated or else die for real. Part of the mystery to unravel is how a little slip of a girl could become a feared school yard criminal mastermind. As Nick drifts in spirit at least around he begins to realize just how many secrets everyone around him has. He gets to see his controlling mother in private. Nick discovered some of the reasons why he is always so afraid. Most importantly he gets into the darkness that is Annie’s life.

The director here, David S. Goyer, has a somewhat eclectic track record mostly in strange films and television series. He was the executive producer for the late, great TV show, Threshold as well as the last two Blade flicks. He also penned the scripts for Batman Begins and is attached to the up coming Magneto and Flash film. Of course he also wrote ‘Puppet Master vs Demonic Toys’ but that can be forgiven. The script still shows more signs of intelligence that normal for a teen oriented spooky movie. Where the film falters is the lack of menace. With a film that is using the beat the clock method of suspense there should be more in the way of urgency. There is a bit of a film noir vibe to this movie but that was done much better with ‘Brick’, a fine example of teen noir. What holds interest in this flick is the stylistic cinematography. It is dark and moody, perfectly setting the tone. As mentioned the film is just targeted to the wrong demographic. If the tension and suspense was ramped up a little this film would be closer to meeting its potential.

Justin Chatwin gives a flat almost unemotional performance. In some respects this works considering the invisible, apart from the world nature of this character. He seems to drift through the film with little in the way of set direction. Marcia Gay Harden is an excellent actress who seems to be getting type cast in up tight women roles. There is little meat to her character here and nothing to really let her talent shine. The one high point of the cast is young Margarita Levieva. For an actress of barely five foot of height and who is probably ninety pounds soaking wet she manages to sell the audience her part as a tough teen criminal king pin.

While Buena Vista is best known for light family films they also have darker films like this one. The film is well presented. The anamorphic 2.35:1 video is spot on in color and contrast. The Dolby 5.1 audio sets a sinister feel to the work. There are about 13 minutes of deleted scenes that don’t add too much to the understanding of the film. There are two commentary tracks provided. The first features the director and screenwriter Christine Roum. This is the most interesting of the two. They discuss some of the inherent problems in bringing a foreign film to the American audience and the way the genres were mixed for the film. The second commentary track is from the co-author of the screenplay, Mick Davis. Keeping with the younger viewers there are two music videos included. This could have been a lot better but it does make for a reasonable pop corn flick.

Posted 10/10/07