A once loving couple now finds themselves front and center at an evening of terror, in “The Invitation”. In this taut psychological thriller by Karyn Kusama, Will (Logan Marshall-Green) and Eden (Tammy Blanchard) were once a loving couple. After a tragedy took their son, Eden disappeared. Two years later, out of the blue, she returns with a new husband (Michael Huisman) and as a different person, eerily changed and eager to reunite with her ex and those she left behind. After inviting Will to bury the hatchet over a gathering of friends, Will finds himself puzzled by his ex-wife’s advances. Over the course of a dinner party in the house that was once his, the emotionally haunted Will is gripped by mounting evidence that Eden and her new friends have a mysterious and terrifying agenda. But can we trust Will’s hold on reality? Or will he be the unwitting catalyst of the doom he senses? The pair’s past haunts an equally spooky present. “The Invitation” is rated R for violence, adult language, and adult themes throughout.
“The Invitation” is beautiful in its simplicity. It’s a low-budget production that feels in tone very much like a slasher movie because of its scintilating tension that the film builds to a powerful climax during the third act, but when in fact the film is a psychological mystery that always keeps us guessing. For a movie that played its characters as straight forward as possible, it amazed me how each surprise was presented along the way. There’s certainly nothing in Kusama’s film that we haven’t seen before, but where she makes up ground on the creative scale is how each of these characters has their secrets, but it’s up to us as an audience to distinguish which one is boiling at the surface. This takes us back to the 60’s era of films when a group of strangers were locked in a house together for a night. The way that Karyn peels the suspenseful onion of tension in the film does justice to the very fears of being betrayed by a best friend, and not really knowing the people that you thought you did best. It makes the walls around our characters feel like a confining prison, one that even the audience can’t escape from its gripping clutches. For 95 minutes, the movie hypnotized me while confirming my beliefs that the biggest secrets are often held within the biggest of houses, and “The Invitation” certainly does its part to provoke thoughts about lavish lifestyles that are simply just table-dressings for something stronger.
The film does pace along a little slow starting off, but it never truly bothered me because I always grabbed the bigger picture. The material relies heavily upon paranoia and that fear of the unknown when it comes to cults and their unorthodox style of living. The cloud of unnerving tension fills the room in which our characters interact and play out and catch up on their lives, but nothing ever feels like a rest period in Kusama’s film. This is just skincrawling suspense that builds up to a final conflict that doesn’t disappoint. My only problem with the finale was in a last minute addition to what was already a satisfying climax, and it all feels unnecessary. Where the movie did best was in its ability to play to the silence, and not soak itself in a musical score that was unnecessary to spoon-feed the terror. With the exception of the opening title sequence, we don’t hear music again until the very end of the movie. This keeps the focus on where it should be; the very truths of our cast and crew.
The choice to have this as a cast of relative unknowns is a brilliant one. Originally, Topher Grace, Zachary Quinto and Luke Wilson held major roles within the film, but I think its best that we get to see actors like Marshall-Green and Blanchard work their best with the introduction to the mainstream audience. In Marshall-Green’s performance, we feel a man clutching on the edges of sanity after the tragic loss of his son. Will is the protagonist for the movie, but it’s in the psychological development and quick edit cuts to represent what is going on internally where we feel like we learn the most about him. He’s living in the past where everyone else seems to be moving on, so it’s understandable why he thinks the worst when we get this adaptation. Blanchard conducts a bi-polar powder keg as Eden, and it’s clear by her performance that these two years have been paralyzing for her psyche. What she presents on the outside is a level of happiness that shines on through red lipstick and crooked smiles, but what’s going on inside is a volcano of tender memories for the people she now shares a table with. With these characters, they will decide how the audience pursues the remainder of the second and third acts where all of the real goodies are hidden. If you invest yourself fully in their histories and past tribulations, you will find great payoff by the end of the film. If you don’t, then “The Invitation” won’t live up to the overstuffed slasher films of today’s society.
Karyn Kusama’s big screen return is a sizzling slowburn walking a carefully constructed line between suspicion and paranoia that mesmerizes through its fiery conclusion. “The Invitation” is a video-on-demand triumph that keeps the focus of the movie where it belongs; on the characters. This invite certainly deserves an RSVP.
7/10