It’s pretty easy to blame everything on The Invisible Man, huh? “Who made that mess in here?” “Invisible Man.” “Why haven’t you done your homework?” “Invisible Man.” “How did Trump lose the popular vote by 3,000,000?” “Invisible Man.” No, I did not like how easily this film lent itself to conspiracy theories. There are too many Americans who already believe really stupid and easily disprovable “facts.” Yet, I cannot deny a decent thriller when I see it.
Writer/director Leigh Whannell knows how to set a scene. It’s past midnight. Cecilia (Elisabeth Moss) climbs out of bed and tiptoes her escape. There are several steps to freedom including collecting a bag, hiding the Diazepam, turning off the alarm, bribing the dog, and hopping a fence. She lives in a compound, not a house. She had to coordinate her strategy days in advance, not unlike a jailbreak. We can tell by her expression exactly how dangerous this is and exactly what trouble she’ll be in if she gets caught. This is what it’s like to live with an abusive partner. The thriller is in full bloom and we haven’t even gotten to the invisible part.
C, yeah the movie calls her “C,” acquires freedom and agoraphobia at the same time. Successfully escaping from the nicest jail ever, C ends up with a single-father cop friend James (Aldis Hodge) where she spends her days indoors afraid of her own shadow. The latter is solved when, lo and behold, her abusive boyfriend Adrian (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) commits suicide. That’s convenient, right? Ah, but this a horror film. He doesn’t really commit suicide now, does he? What happens instead is strange things start happening at the safe house where C went for estate rehab.
Turns out Adrian is an optics expert and has figured out how to make himself disappear both figuratively and literally. But you can feel when somebody is in a room, right? They breathe, they shift, they smell; even if you take sight away, it’s still nearly impossible to hide a human being in an enclosed space and C gets the distinct impression that someone is there. Constantly. And then the distinct impression becomes a full on, “WTF?!” like when Adrian becomes a covers hog in a bed where he’s not sleeping. At that point, you’ve either got a ghost problem or a sheet wrangling problem.
Most previous iterations of Invisible Men attack either the “woe is me” angle or the “pervy voyeur” angle, neither of which is presented 
here. I’m thankful for this on at least one level. I kinda grew tired of the “oh no! I can’t eat, bathe, juggle, karaoke, tango, etc.” complaints. What is it The Invisible Man cannot do compared to others, really? Shave? OTOH, there’s always a bucket of silly that accompanies films like these … as in the scene when C is in the attic and dumps a “can of paint” on our villain. I’m sorry, but the way it fails to stick, that cannot be paint. It’s milk, which begs the question, “Why do these folks have a fresh open can of milk stored in the attic?”
Adrian, the visible human, almost never appears in the film. That was a good choice; it lends a greater air of the villainy when we have to imagine exactly what our invisible foe looks like –in fact, it’s a personal psychological test of sorts to quiz individuals on who they pictured as the person torturing C. In general, films with active gaslighting bother me. I suppose this is exactly because gaslighting is the weapon of choice in the era of alternative facts. But I cannot deny the effectiveness in drawing me to the heroine, nor do I fault some of her profoundly bad choices as a result. I didn’t quite expect a remorseless, homicidal Invisible Man, and that makes this an effective thriller.
♪Some children stay far away from my bench
When they see me eating lunch in the park
They see my scooter cruising down the street
And hope that I just pass them by
Some pols actively solicit my vote
Hoping that I will troll foes online
They only want to sully the sitch
So nobody cares if I lie
My worth is valued exactly as much
As I am a visible man♫
Rated R, 124 Minutes
Director: Leigh Whannell
Writer: Leigh Whannell
Genre: Paranoia
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Fans of thrillers
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: The paranoid
♪ Parody Inspired by “An Innocent Man”
