Lazy Film Critic Movie Reviews
The Invitation
So I just watched Karyn Kusamas The Invitation, a film from earlier this year that due to its very limited release, I didn't get to see until now. The film follows this guy who is invited to a dinner party by his ex-wife and her new husband, however things start to seem a little sketchy. And for the sake of spoilers, that's all I'm going to tell you about the plot, trust me you'll thank me. The film stars Logan Marshall-Green, Ematzy Corinealdi, Michael Huisman, John Carroll Lynch, and Tammy Blanchard.
Now going into this movie I can honestly say I didn't know very much about it, aside from the writers, Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay. Now, the rest of their script history consists of R.I.P.D, Clash of the Titans, Aeon Flux, and Ride Along, so needlessly to say I was less than hopeful for the writing. And oh boy was I ever wrong, this film is not only their most well written, it's honestly one of the most well-written movies of the year, as astonishing as that may be. The way this movie handles elements of mystery and character-driven story is near-flawless, always keeping the audience guessing without ever bogging it down with cliche or keeping too much information away from us and making it convoluted.
Another big career difference is the director herself, Karyn Kusama. Much like the writers, her history is less than impressive, her two biggest movies being Aeon Flux and Jennifers Body. And much like the writers, this is a massive improvement. This movie demonstrates master craftsmanship with elements such as lighting, composition, framing, and camera movement. If I had to make a comparison in terms of visual style, this film is very similar visually to a movie from 2015 called The Gift, in that it applies a kind of fine sharp and crisp look to everything in the frame while heavily playing around with the lighting. It's probably the best visual style for conveying tension and creating suspense simply through the way the audience is looking at the scene, and I'm happy I'm seeing more of it.
At its core, The Invitation is a character driven story, and character driven stories really hinge on two things - the performances and the character writing. And while the story writing and cinematography were the highlights for me, the way the characters are written and performed was also very well done. The two main characters both had excellent performances, and the writing for the main character in particular was fantastic. However, if I had to say there's one thing in particular that stuck out as a problem in the movie, it was the supporting characters. None of them were really bad, but I didn't really feel anything for some of the less relevant characters. And while I appreciate how much this movie leaves to the imagination as opposed to coddling the audience, it would have been nice to get some insight into who these people are. And considering a lot of them did somewhat stupid things in this movie, I would have liked to know why they were doing those things outside of plot convenience. But at the end of the day, that's a minor problem in a film that is overall fantastic and one of my favorites of the year.
Final Rating
The Invitation very quickly earned its spot on my top 10 favorite movies of the year. It's an utterly unique, visually pleasing, and brilliantly written mystery thriller with a subtle minimalist method of storytelling. It features some really good performances and some of the best directing and cinematography I've seen all year. It also features one of the best endings I've seen in a movie all year, but I wouldn't dare spoil why. It's on Netflix, so go check it out when you can.
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