The Invitation
This movie has been discussed multiple times on this forum so I'll keep my review brief.
In many ways both obvious and subtle,
The Invitation reminded me of other "dinner party" films like
Coherence,
The Wife (a wonderfully moody indie film by Tom Noonan),
The Perfect Host and even a little of
You're Next. A bunch of uppity, "enlightened" 20-30 somethings gather in a beautiful, expensive house and spend time appreciating themselves; and boy are the L.A. urbanites in this film a real group of winners.
The Invitation is a frustrating film in which characters (namely protagonist Will) are presented with obvious, compelling evidence
to get the fuck out of there except they stay out of their obligation to be good, polite, house guests and the obligation to one of the most mutated portrayals of 'friendship' I've ever seen in a film. I got the sense that these people were only friends because of how much attention they were willing to lavish upon each other with the expectation of receiving it in kind. Which I suppose is for the best since Will is the emotional center of the film; his struggles with grief, with his ex-wife (co-host of the party), with the other party goers, with his girlfriend, very readily become our struggles as viewers; if only because everyone else in the film are garbage humans.
This attachment to Will works well to keep you guessing at the actual "truth" of what's unfolding right up until "the thing" you've been waiting for happens and it's basically what you suspected all along and sucks the mystery right out of the film. What was a story about the power of social obligation, the fear of standing out/speaking up and the subjective nature of grief rapidly becomes a pointless pseudo prequel to
.
The Good:
+ The film looks great at almost all times, the setting is beautiful and claustrophobic
+ Logan Marshall-Green's (Will) acting
+ The rest of the ensemble cast does a fantastic job at being terrible people
+ The film's first two acts do a great job of keeping the mystery
The Bad:
- Film makes a hard right into standard horror fare in the third act
- Character motivations are unintelligent/unintelligble/not properly reasoned
- The final 30 seconds are pointless and only further undermine the film's initial message
The Ugly:
- Will's friends (except Claire) are insufferable people
--
Score:
3.5 glasses of moderately priced wine out of
5
_/¯) and appreciated that this didn't get into some of the heavy handed weirdness that the remake did. I'd have to give a slight edge to the remake as far as intensity goes but nearly everything else in the original is superior, especially the ending.
