Weekly Review -- Going under

The Invisible (2007) -- Supernatural phenomena are a bottomless well for filmmakers. From The Haunting to The Blair Witch Project to Paranormal Activity, many of these works have been successful due to a profound and everlasting interest in otherworldly subjects. Although The Invisible comes with quite the cinematic pedigree -- The Sixth Sense! Batman Begins! Prominently displayed! -- it suffers in comparison with these films, being that many of its aspects simply feel unfinished.

Nick (Justin Chatwin) is about to graduate from high school and is setting off for London, to start his dream life as a writer. After he tries to help his best friend Pete (Chris Marquette) fend off harassment by school bully Annie (Margarita Levieva), Annie and her gang attack Nick and leave him for dead. Stuck in limbo, Nick realizes that Annie is the only one who can rescue him, but she is on a self-destructive path that does not allow her to turn back...

The film suffers from that most frustrating of cinematic issues -- an intriguing idea lost in a barely passable execution. The premise is truly innovative, but could have benefited from a screenplay that dared to examine the details of its own enigma a little further. It made me wonder about the 2002 Swedish original, which I might seek out at a later date. The main problem with The Invisible are the random, unexplained and heavy-handed fragments that pop out of nowhere and are generally too out of context to be part of an eloquent narrative. I am not a fan of relationships without backgrounds or characters that change their motivation with every turn of the script. To name a few examples, I wish we could have got to know Nick's mother Diane, played with oppressively agonizing melancholy by Marcia Gay Harden, a little better; their stalled relationship would have added a new dimension to the tense events unfolding. As far as Nick goes, he is a surprisingly bland character. Yes, he has dreams and yes, he has a future that might be over before it has begun, courtesy of the wrong side of the tracks. We understand these facts, but please, give us something to wrap our minds around, something that makes us recognize ourselves in his fictional plight, something that makes us humanize. His arc simply moves from point A to point B, ending up void of any and all emotional expenditures on the part of the audience. And what is going on with Annie, anyway? In one scene, she is a maniacal delinquent with family issues; in another, she erupts in histrionics at the drop of a hat; in yet another, she is merely a misunderstood nihilist with a heart of gold. The character cannot decide whether to go the route of redemption or rebellion until the hurried finale, a dilemma that also ultimately leads to a lack of investment in her predicament. Contrary to a remake such as 2009's The Last House on the Left -- a remake that cherishes its every nuance and that, in my opinion, is the standard against which all remakes should be measured -- The Invisible wastes its psychological depth potential for the sake of superficial suspense.

The actors do the best job with what they are given. Chatwin displays anguished wrath as Nick, while Levieva is at her best when exploring Annie as a flawed human being with a latent sense of morality. Easily the best actor among the cast, Harden relishes an amazing moment -- indeed, the most effective moment in the film -- and Marquette is sufficiently shifty as Pete, the best friend unable to deal with his demons.

Overall, The Invisible leaves the impression that it could have been so much better, if only the writing had delved beyond the surface and into the rich fabric of human psychology. It is a different breed of supernatural whodunit and it deserves to have been carefully crafted, not assembled through slapdash tactics. See it if you are curious, but be prepared to deduce more logical questions than existential answers.

6/10