Movie Review: The Invisible Man (English)

H. G. Wells' influential sci-fi novel gets a topical update in Leigh Whannell's take on The Invisible Man. A #MeToo horror film that's a taut, if a little predictable, combination of scares and a reworked narrative about how women can be manipulated and abused in toxic relationships, it's a nervy slice of psychological thrills that works best when spent less time sweating the details. Cecilia (a skittish Elisabeth Moss doing more for the film than it does for her) makes a run from her controlling and abusive tech mogul husband Adrian, taking refuge in the company of her cop friend James and his teenage daughter Sydney.

But when she finds out that Adrian has killed himself, what should have been a weight lifting off her chest turns into something more sinister — that he's not dead and has somehow made himself invisible, surreptitiously stalking her, gaslighting her into doubting her own sanity, attempting to alienate and isolate her from those closest to her. It's a case of an eye for an eye, only here the woman being victimised (or the people around her) cannot see the man perpetrating it. Essentially a story about the dangers of not believing abuse survivors, Whannell's reinvention of the classic has its creepy moments, while delving into themes of trauma, voyeurism and untrammelled power. But it all comes undone in its convoluted final act and a largely by-the-numbers storyline that pushes the genre buttons as a rote exercise and doesn't offer anything by way of insightful or new. Worse, "the invisible man" not only remains unseen, he is a frustrating enigma. The Invisible Man holds the viewer's attention, just about.