The invisible man (2020) – a review.

A young woman –Cecilia- finally manages to escape the clutches of her abusive husband Adrian. Soon after this he commits suicide. Yet, something tells Cecilia that her husband isn’t dead. That he is using his skill in the field of optical-technology to torment her once again. Is Cecilia seeing things or is her husband truly the invisible man.

The invisible man is what a good remake should be. It takes an old movie (the 1933 version with the same title) and updates it to current times.

Visually, by updating the original English countryside inn and barn in favour of a massive neo-modernist beach house (with lots of glass). Plotwise; technology instead of magical potions.
And, thematically; this version’s main theme is abuse, because that is a prominent feature in our current collective (western) landscape.

The movie ended the way it was always supposed to end. The script was pretty straightforward in that regard. The title of the movie is The invisible MAN. It’s all about masculine power play over a woman and her changing from victim to survivor. So of course, to highlight the end of her transition the movie needed The invisible WOMAN to end it all.

Where so many remakes fail, The invisible man succeeds. The reason for this is quite simple really: the remake only truly needed to tick two boxes of the original: there has to be a man and he has to be invisible. The rest the moviemakers could ‘fill in’ as they saw fit.

It is interesting to note here that every invisible man movie sofar (it haven’t been that many to be honest) rather uses the current technological advance of the day to make said man invisible. Memoirs of the invisible man (1992) used gamma rays; Hollow man (2000) used some sort of chemo therapy. And so this one uses sleek and stylish technology straight from the Apple factory.

It’s quite another story if you are remaking (for instance) Papillion (1971, 2017). Then the movies have to address a whole array of elements. There’s not a lot of freedom.

The invisible movie genre

When it comes to invisible men in movies there are various personal traits you can hand the bloke. Rodney Skinner in The league of extraordinary gentlemen (2003) was a thief and a spy. A handy character to have around in a movie that deals with a world encompassing conspiracy.

But if the invisible man is the main character of a movie those personal traits become part of the thematic of the movie and/or character. For instance:

I think dear Violet Incredible is the only (well known) female in cinema who gets to turn invisible.

Her original thematic for her powers were shyness.

Memoirs of an invisible man; a regular bloke who took life for granted and now wants his normality back. Il ragazzo invisibile (2014); becoming an adult. Hollow man; a peeping tom and a control freak. And, now, The invisible man; An narcissist.

So, as you can see, invisibility grants the movie a variety of thematics to play with. Just like the good ol’ vampire movies love to play with thematics surrounding youth, religion, and, of course, lust and sex.

But in any archetype-story one thematic is always the most prominent. For the vampire-stories it death. And, I argue, invisible movies always use the thematic: sneaky. Doing, or being somewhere that isn’t allowed. Like Harry Potter (2001) exploring the library at night.

With this comes the conclusion that an invisible man movie works best if the man in question is a villain. Because a villain is far more comfortable doing something sneaky than a hero. A villain might keep it up the entire movie whilst the hero constantly needs new reasons to turn invisible again (like Dexter Riley’s actions in Now you see him now you don’t (1972)).

The invisible villain

Interesting about The invisible man –I found- is that the main villain doesn’t appear on the screen for more than three minutes or so and that is predominantly near the end. This hauls back to the original The invisible man (1933) in which Claude Rains was already invisible to begin with. You never meet him face to face as it were so the man stays a mystery, there’s no connection.

Paul Verhoeven’s Hollow man took a different approach. This movie took quite a bit of time to get to know the main character Sebastian Caine. And, even though, Kevin Bacon pretty much played him like an unlikable smuck from the get go you do bond with this character; as an audience will always bond with the person who is on screen most of the time no matter whether they are villains or heroes. No matter what they do (e.g. That gut wrenching scene in Once upon a time in America (1984)).

This does, however, create a possible problem for The invisible man by the way that it is shot.

The villain invisible

You never truly see the danger that Adrien is. All you get from the movie to accept this statement is his brute smashing of the car window at the start of the movie

A very clever story technique that shows how uninhibited and violent a character is.

and Cecelia’s fear of him. This concept works a charm the minute you make Cecelia an unreliable character.

However, in The invisible man she stays rather reliable throughout. The viewer gets to see exactly how she is constantly being framed by the invisible man, there is no ambiguity on whether or not she is telling the truth. So, ergo, her stories about the danger that is Adrien has to be the truth as well.

I, for one, would be rather intrigued the see what would happen if Whannell took the Rear Window-route (1954). Constantly questioning if the protagonist is right; or even right in the head like in Twelve Monkeys (1995).

Which would mean: leaving all the shenanigans of the invisible man out. And only in the end spring the revelation that we are talking about a literal invisible man here instead of a figurative invisible man working behind the scenes or from the protagonist’s damaged psyche.

The director

Leigh Whannell is quickly growing as a director. I’m rather impressed with what he managed in The invisible man. Both the acting performances he managed to capture as the way he uses the camera (the opening shot alone is wonderful).

Who would’ve thought ten years ago that the golden child James Wan would end up making enjoyable but not very memorable blockbuster movies like Aquaman (2018) and The fast and the furious 7 (2015). And that Whannell would take over his friend's reigns and craft smart little thrillers.

But then again; Whannell has a remake of Escape from New York lined up and Wan is going back to his roots with a thriller called Malignant.

The invisible script

As always in Whannell’s screenplays the important plotdevices get introduced early and in quick succession. Without spoiling too much: the knife, the fire extinguisher and the hidden compartment amongst other things are thrown in early and openly without any pretence of hiding it for the audience.
So this little fire in the kitchen-scene servers three purposes: the introduction of the knife, the introduction of the fire-extinguisher and establishing a solid relationship between the two females.

That’s what I always liked about Whannell’s screenplays, they are clear. Every scene has a function and he hardly every mucks it up with scenes leading nowhere.

I do, however, blame him sometimes for ignoring the obvious. In the case of The invisible man the script tends to make the criminal too smart, too much in control. Which, at certain times, makes you wonder how this woman ever managed to outsmart him like that.

The acting invisible

One of the famous things to say about an actor or actress is to say something like: ‘She doesn’t appear to be acting at all.’ I never truly agreed with this statement, but I understand the compliment behind it.

In The invisible man it is Elizabeth Moss who is front and centre throughout. Because of the lack of a visual threat the entire movie is on her shoulders. She has to act and react to things ‘not there’ and the audience has to take her ‘word’ on this.

In short Moss has a deliciously juicy part that allows her to showcase her talent as an actress. And she does quite brilliantly. She never truly goes over the top (which would be easy to do in such a fantastical tale) and manages to find a balance between a whole array of character-emotions shifting between empowered, victim, paranoid and just plain old fightin’ mad.

True some of the abovementioned choices of 'seeing what the invisible man does' made during this movie rather weaken her performance in the whole. But that certainly doesn’t diminish the fact that she gives quite the performance.

More invisible men

Originally it was the intention to make a Dark universe much like the Marvel and DC universes only this time featuring the monsters from yesteryears. This dream however imploded the minute Dracula: Untold (2014) and The Mummy (2017) failed at the box office.

But maybe that was a blessing in disguise. Because movies like The invisible man work on a small scale. Let vampires and lycanthropes have their all out war in various massive blockbuster movies and let the invisible man and Dr. Jekylle and Mr. Hyde operate on a smaller scale.

Free from the Dark universe, Whannell managed to craft a small thriller with a fantastical concept at its core. And, again, free from the Dark universe this movie has found its audience.

It is interesting to see once again that a good movie doesn’t come on order. It comes from people given the freedom to create something that they think is right.

The invisible man is a well crafted thriller that fits perfectly in our current era in which female rights and technological advances are hot topics.

Who said a ninety year old story is dead? It just takes a new perspective to see what is possible. To see what was once invisible.