The Invisible

 This commercially produced film, steeped in the most crass of Hollywood and the music industry, nevertheless contained much more substance that I would have anticipated. At moments the audience may wince at the pretty, clean, white people in roles that seem more common in a different kind of neighborhood, but who is more racist: me, for thinking only non-caucasian ethnicities kill each other, or them, for making a movie with only a single non-white actor of any note?

Racial issues aside, this film still startled me with its depth of emotion. Although the plot itself held no real surprises, and the ending was a kind of slow exhale, nothing in the film shook me out of the experience. Like most films, one or two lines may have been somewhat underdone, but for the most part, they worked in context. The eventual reluctant alliance between the two main characters built naturally from propinquity and forgiveness, rather than from some artificial, hormonal thing one usually gets in teen melodrama.

The teens were too pretty, perhaps. The main character lives the kind of charmed life suited to The Breakfast Club. But what kind of teen fantasy involves being beaten up and left for dead? Who daydreams that they get haunted by the person they killed, and then shot by their boyfriend? The accusation that this film expresses some kind of adolescent fantasy may indicate its origins, but not the complete realization I just watched. This movie is a strong ideal well-funded.

The big question: How did this film get a 20% on the tomatometer, and Twilight, which I could barely stomach, got a full 50%?