In Leigh Whannell’s “The Invisible Man,” Cecilia (Elisabeth Moss) is victimized by her narcissist sociopathic husband, Adrian (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), even after his apparent death. It all amounts to a metaphorically-driven B-movie filled with Cronenberg-ian dread throughout its, let’s be clear, overlong 124-minute runtime, but the most ingenious aspect of the film is how Whannell manages to tell the story of a victim nobody wants to believe.
We first meet Cecilia as she attempts to make a run for it, in the middle of the night, as her husband sleeps next to her in bed. She’s packed and ready to go, and the escape is successful, but not without a little tension added to the mix for good fun. By all accounts, being married to a world leader in the field of optics and having enough money to live atop a mansion on the hill was not enough reason for Cecilia to stay wedded to Adrian, who we slowly but surely find out was a controlling partner. It’s also totally not off the beaten path to presume, just by little hints sprinkled by Whannell, that Adrian, who very much wanted to be a father, raped Cecilia by forcing her to have sex with him. Unbeknownst to him, she admits to secretly being on birth control pills for this very reason. The shades of #MeToo in this film are more subtle than you think.
Days after the escape, Cecilia is sheltered in a trusted friend’s place, far away from Adrian, but inflicted with a severe bout of PTSD from the relationship. She can’t even step foot outside the house without having a panic attack, worried that Adrian might come out of nowhere and attack. Ceclia learns that Adrian has died — an“apparent suicide” the newspaper says. However, she’s convinced that he’s somehow come back from the dead, totally invisible and ready to stalk and terrorize her in the process.
The sheer paranoia that envelops the movie from this point forward is tensely drawn out by Whannell, who brought delicious B-grade thrills to his 2018 low-budget sci-fi flick, “Upgrade.” The jump scares never feel cheap in this movie, but rather a by-product of the immaculately drawn out atmosphere.
Of course, the more “The Invisible Man” goes along, the more ludicrous its concept becomes, as it owes its debt to the famous H.G. Wells tale of a power-mad scientist who invents an invisibility cloak to creep. Despite the on-paper silliness, Whannell and Moss make a formidable team. The latter, best known for her TV roles in “Mad Men” and “The Handmaid’s Tale,” shows impressive trust in the B-movie material at hand and delivers the best movie performance of her career. Taking full advantage of the emotional wreck her Cecilia has become, Moss plays it very real, never once hinting that we are in genre territory. In that regard, Moss’ performance very much belongs in the same realm as Toni Collette’s work in “Hereditary,” acting which transcends genre barriers and reveals a humanist experience.
Of course, it’s no fair revealing where the movie truly goes from there — it’s a booby trap of twists and turns — but do know that Whannell’s vision works best when it is most interested in the invisible scars that an abused woman carries in her head, more so than any sort of horrific invisible man. If anything, updating Wells’ classic was just an excuse for the subtextual overload the film carries. Like the very best horror films, there is plenty underneath this film’s facade. [B/B+]
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