A teenager must try to
unravel his own death in David Goyer's
The Invisible, an enervated but for the most part artful tone piece of teen estrangement. Decently sketched and acted, the film's chief problem is that the race-against-time elements aren't always quite
galvanizing enough to elicit and hold the attention and appreciation of
younger audiences wanting or expecting a goosing supernatural
thriller. This is
much more a
character-rooted, sustained mood piece than a commercially geared film,
but since it's about and chiefly marketed toward teenagers, well... it faces an uphill climb in wooing
its target demographic.
Based on a Swedish novel and film adaptation,
The Invisible centers on Nick Powell (Justin Chatwin), a brooding, intelligent
and well-to-do high-school student with a wounded soul. Still stung by
the death of his father several years prior,
Nick lives in a state of
emotional detachment with his regimented mother Diane (Marcia Gay Harden). He
wants to be a writer — and in fact makes extra money selling term
papers to some of his classmates — but is unable to convince his mother
of said occupation's practicality.
Nick's best and only friend,
really, is Pete (Chris Marquette), a less well-off kid who runs up a debt
with tough girl Annie Newton (Margarita Levieva). Sullen and troubled by her own
unhappy home life, Annie lives out of control, committing
smash-and-grab robberies with her older boyfriend, ex-con Marcus (Alex
O'Loughlin). Believing Nick to have already left town for a
writer's program abroad, Pete feeds Annie Nick's name in an attempt to
extricate himself from a sticky situation. In a fit of rage, Annie then
beats Nick, apparently to death, and hides his body in the woods.
Caught in a state of bodily limbo, Nick
reappears in ethereal form, able to see all those around him but
powerless to affect their actions. While Detective Brian Larson
(Callum Keith Rennie) searches for answers, Nick — instead of consulting
The Ghost Whisperer — tries in parallel fashion to lead
authorities to his body, and finds himself learning more about Annie in
the process.
An evocatively gloomy, elliptical drama
of redemption that pretty nicely captures the palpable disconnection of youth,
The Invisible has a nice anchor in Chatwin, who has now showcased varying degrees of hot and cold in
War of the Worlds and
The Chumscrubber. With his icy glare, Chatwin conveys a quiet intensity that is in smart lockstep with Goyer's tone, which convincingly digs into the loneliness and despair of adolescence.
The Invisible also refreshingly uses uninterrupted takes and
in-camera editing tricks to convey Nick's frustrated attempts to
unsuccessfully communicate with those around him.
Emo
soundtrack tunes by Snow Patrol, Death Cab For Cutie and Mellowdrone,
meanwhile, further feed the movie's tone of wistful plaintiveness.
Housed in a regular Amray case, the movie's DVD presentation features a 2.35:1 widescreen transfer, enhanced for 16x9 televisions, and a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound track, in English, French and Spanish.
Two feature-length audio commentary tracks — one from Goyer and co-writer Christine Roum, the other from originating co-writer Mick Davis — offer up a mix of anecdote and thematic analysis, complementing music videos from 30 Seconds to Mars ("The Kill") and Sparta ("Taking Back Control"). The real highlight, though, comes via
13 minutes of deleted scenes, which offer further parallel tidbits of Nick's home life and Annie's fractured domestic situation.
B (Movie) B (Disc) 
