The excitement is Unseen
Most of this is what you'd call kitchen sink drama--or the Canadian version of that. Dour uneventful life presented in a dour uneventful way. The set up is good and the final 20 minutes also finally mix invisible "problem" with real life problem into a satisfying ending. But at 97 minutes you feel you've seen a first draft screenplay for a short film tortured into a feature length.
Now it's not just that there aren't invisible "Gags" every other scene, it's that as a drama it's all very slow paced and in the worst sense Canadian.
Effects, what ones there are, are very well done but the connection and balance of existential invisibility and kitchen sink drama--really melodrama, isn't there.
Another thing is, it chooses to present invisibility as a sort of genetic problem not really talked about. This works well. Then unfortunately they introduce some mystical Chinese tea into the story? Either make this a supernatural or existential story--here they kind of mix the least exciting elements of both.
The writer and director just doesn't really have a handle on what would make this all work.
It has a first timer feel to the pacing--where everything just goes on and on so we hang for every last small nuance of performance. The performances are good, but the whole thing has the pace of a hangover.
Nicely produced. A good idea. But the script isn't there. Somewhere where between the over-the-top dumb exploitation of The Hollow Man and the small mostly-nothing-happens approach to this film is the film they were trying to make. As they say A for effort....
Now it's not just that there aren't invisible "Gags" every other scene, it's that as a drama it's all very slow paced and in the worst sense Canadian.
Effects, what ones there are, are very well done but the connection and balance of existential invisibility and kitchen sink drama--really melodrama, isn't there.
Another thing is, it chooses to present invisibility as a sort of genetic problem not really talked about. This works well. Then unfortunately they introduce some mystical Chinese tea into the story? Either make this a supernatural or existential story--here they kind of mix the least exciting elements of both.
The writer and director just doesn't really have a handle on what would make this all work.
It has a first timer feel to the pacing--where everything just goes on and on so we hang for every last small nuance of performance. The performances are good, but the whole thing has the pace of a hangover.
Nicely produced. A good idea. But the script isn't there. Somewhere where between the over-the-top dumb exploitation of The Hollow Man and the small mostly-nothing-happens approach to this film is the film they were trying to make. As they say A for effort....
- HEFILM
- Dec 8, 2016