“Please listen to me!”: Why THE INVISIBLE MAN Needs To Be Seen

This review made possible by our friends at the Galaxy Theater! To get tickets to The Invisible Man or other great flicks, check out their tickets page!

Rating: 📷📷📷📷📷

I’ve been excited to catch The Invisible Man ever since I saw the trailer before Black Christmas (which I actually really, really enjoyed). I love Leigh Whannell a lot, and I always have. He and James Wan are a horror movie dream duo (the Saw franchise is a guilty pleasure of mine), and I loved Whannell’s sophomore directorial feature Upgrade because it was a beautiful homage to the 80s and 90s action movies I grew up with. When I found out he was not only taking on The Invisible Man, but he was doing a re-imagining through the lens of an abusive relationship, I was on board faster than you could say, “Do you want to play a game?” 

To give you context, Cecilia Kass, played by the ever-talented Elizabeth Moss, finally gains the courage to leave her  abusive boyfriend, Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), in the middle of the night; however, Cecilia finds herself met with skepticism, toxic masculinity, and the horrific residual psychological, emotional, and physical damage left from an abusive relationship. 

I’ve always maintained the horror genre provides a powerful platform because as there are so many “monsters” in our reality to begin with, it’s easy to have fictional ghouls and villains represent them on the silver screen and make a statement for the voiceless or the underdogs or the victims. The Invisible Man does an absolutely perfect job of not only showing the grotesque inner-workings of an abuser’s mind or how woman are so often criticized and demeaned in our society, but also how abuse victims suffer on a catastrophic level. 

Cecilia’s sister Emily (Harriet Dyer) is quick to dismiss her after Emily receives a nasty email from Cecilia’s address (which wasn’t sent by Cecilia, who could have easily been hacked in our technological age) and tells Cecilia she “needs medication” before slamming the door in her face. Cecilia has a job interview for a prestigious architect firm because Cecilia is a highly intelligent badass, but instead of focusing on her resume, her interviewer makes a comment about her looks as well as a joke about closet space. Even after a big reveal (no spoilers here), the justice system fails her, as explained by her confidant James (Aldis Hodge) because they aren’t listening to the person who knows Adrian the best out of anyone. The person who suffered by his hand in every way possible. The person who tearfully begs Adrian to tell her why he wants her when “there’s nothing left to take,” in what I think is one of the most powerful scenes of the entire movie. 

I’ve learned in my life that often times people struggle with finding how to support people going through tragedies of any kind, especially survivors of abuse, and it can often lead to saying the wrong thing or offering the wrong type of support. The Invisible Man really doesn’t hold back this idea. Believe your loved ones. Ask them how they need to be supported. Simply put, just be there. For me, this movie was more than a brilliantly and cleverly done take on the Universal Classic Monsters (with a great Saw graffiti Easter Egg during the scene where Elizabeth Moss “borrows” a car). It was a wake up call. Pay attention to red flags. Check in with your loved ones. Don’t be afraid to ask the difficult questions. Make sure people are both seen and heard. Understand the incredible amount of courage it takes to walk out the door. To be honest, a lot of abusers work diligently to keep their atrocities hidden, but we have to make sure their victims aren’t the ones who become invisible.