Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Invisible Man’ on HBO, in Which Elisabeth Moss Gets Crazy Intense in a Terrific Horror Reboot

Now on HBO, The Invisible Man is remarkable for three reasons: One, it stars Elisabeth Moss, pound-for-pound the best actor of any gender in the business, in her highest-profile movie yet. Two, it successfully reinvigorates an old story within a relevant modern context. And three, it was originally supposed to be part of Universal’s classic-monster Dark Universe franchise, but after The Mummy tanked and scuttled that idea, the studio had the gall to soldier on with the GROUNDBREAKING and SHOCKINGLY BOLD notion of making a series of films that dare to NOT be interconnected beneath a massive narrative umbrella. Standalone stories: THIS is THE FUTURE of MOVIES, people!

THE INVISIBLE MAN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Cecilia Kass (Moss) awakens. It’s 3:41 a.m. She drugs her boyfriend Adrian’s (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) water glass with diazepam and quietly makes her way through his stone-cold museumesque ultramodern-hell of a mansion-on-the-cliff, and escapes. See, he’s a rich and brilliant genius in the field of optics, but as an SO, he’s a putrid piece of controlling, oppressive, abusive offal. He wakes up and gives chase, but Cecilia gets away with an assist from her sister Emily (Harriet Dyer). Freedom? God, we hope so, but there’s still 100 or so minutes of movie left, and no man has achieved invisibility yet as the title promises, so probably not.

TWO WEEKS LATER. Cecilia is holed up with her detective friend James (Aldis Hodge) and his teen daughter Sydney (Storm Reid). She’s justifiably paranoid and more than a little bit agoraphobic. Emily calls: Adrian is dead, she says. Suicide. Freedom? Um, nobody’s counting their chickens yet. Adrian’s brother Tom (Michael Dorman) informs her that she’s inherited a trust worth $5 million. Seem too good to be true? Well, please note, nobody in the movie has achieved visual imperceptibility at this point. Cecilia pays for Sydney’s college, buys James a nice ladder for his home improvement projects and generally seems on the path to psychological healing. But she’s not aware of the directorial decisions being made here — the ominous camera angles and perspectives, creepy music, etc. — but we are. This is what we lit majors call DRAMATIC IRONY.

Finally, at long last, strange things start happening to Cecilia. Blankets get pulled off the bed. Her portfolio is mysteriously empty when a hipster dingus interviews her for a job at an architectural firm. A puff of breath appears in the air totally out of nowhere behind her on a chilly night. Emily receives a hateful email from Cecilia’s address. Someone cuffs Sydney upside the head, and the only other person in the room is Cecilia. Did we mention that Adrian is a brilliant genius in the field of optics? We know better, but Cecilia’s gaslighting and institutionalization seems inevitable. However, this cretinous invisible man made one gross miscalculation when he didn’t realize that putting Elisabeth Moss on an island prompts the transformation of tortured Moss to righteous Moss. And that’s when your ass is grass.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: This film has little in common with its gauze-and-sunglasses franchise predecessor. It sits in the sweet spot of a venn diagram with solid mainstream horror like Sinister and The Conjuring, the socio-politically conscious chills of Get Out and the technical and thematic acumen of arthouse horror films such as It Follows and Hereditary.

Performance Worth Watching: Moss is so ruthlessly committed to unglamorous deep-psych anxiety-riddled roles like this (see also: Shirley, Her Smell, The Handmaid’s Tale), we can’t help but love her. And maybe worry about her a little?

Memorable Dialogue: Want some more irony? A motivational poster Cecilia reads has layers and layers of it: “You don’t have to face yourself alone.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: BELIEVE WOMEN. The Invisible Man uses an extreme and fantastical premise as a metaphor: like many women, Cecilia is fighting back against a physical and psychological abuser, and others in her life — close friends, family, police, doctors — jump to the conclusion that she’s mentally unwell. Of course the situation is extreme, even absurd, but the movie’s firm adherence to her point-of-view puts us firmly in her shoes, with an empathetic understanding of her struggle. Outlandish horror laced with realistic horror is consequential horror — and the best horror.

So the subtext is weighty and meaningful. As for the execution, director Leigh Wannell (Upgrade) shows considerable mastery of visual language, building suspense with crazy long takes, paranoid/stalker angles, nifty lighting tricks and strategic, convincing special effects. His screenplay hinges on a few easy conveniences — one simply does not introduce a basic beneath-the-sink household tool in the first act without it returning for a dramatic third-act encore appearance — but he deploys a barrage of shrewd twists to keep us on our tippy-toes, all jittery and very much involved. His ending doesn’t quite offer a satisfactory culmination of the many terrific scenes that came before it, but by that point, we’re fully invested, suitably impressed and willing to forgive. It’s really the only thing preventing The Invisible Man from being one of 2020’s best films.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Who thought an old, worn-out premise could inspire such a strong reboot? Not only is The Invisible Man an extraordinary thriller with an as-usual brilliant performance by Elisabeth Moss, it’s also a fist in the patriarchy’s invisible face.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream The Invisible Man (2020) on HBO Max

Stream The Invisible Man (2020) on HBO Now