The Invitation

Director: Karyn Kasama
Screenplay: Phil Hay & Matt Manfredi
Stars: Logan Marshall-Green (Will), Michelle Krusiec (Gina), Aiden Lovekamp (Ty), Mike Doyle (Tommy), Jordi Vilasuso (Miguel), Marieh Delfino (Claire), Jay Larson (Ben), Tammy Blanchard (Eden), Emayatzy Corinealdi (Kira), Michiel Huisman (David), Lindsay Burdge (Sadie), John Carroll Lynch (Pruitt)
MPAA Rating: R
Year of Release: 2016
Country: U.S.
The Invitation
The InvitationSet almost entirely inside a remote mansion in the hills above Los Angeles, The Invitation is a thumb-screw chamber drama with a premise dripping in absolute menace, although said menace remains tantalizingly vague until things start going south. You might see where things are headed in a general way, but the exact nature of their unfolding and their implication, which is beautifully and chillingly realized in a crackerjack final shot that reveals why the film’s singular location has been so important, will likely take you by surprise. We live in an era of puzzle movies and twist endings, but what makes The Invitation so fundamentally satisfying is that, despite its twist ending, it doesn’t feel like a twist because the revelation at the end is, rather than a sudden lurch into left field, a frighteningly understandable extension of what we have just witnessed. Director Karyn Kasama, a former indie wunderkind whose last feature was the Diablo Cody-penned Jennifer’s Body (2009), rightly recognizes that the film’s essence is its slow burn, which makes the eventual maelstrom that much more powerful.

The story begins at twilight with Will (Logan Marshall-Green) and his girlfriend Kira (Emayatzy Corinealdi) driving up the winding roads into Hollywood hills. There is casual discussion about the dinner party to which they are headed, and there is obvious tension about the prospect of the evening ahead. Violence intrudes almost immediately as they hit and mortally injure a coyote, which Will puts out its misery with a tire iron. The combination of viciousness and mercy immediately makes us both leery and appreciative of Will, whose lanky hair and long beard frame sensitive eyes and a boyish face that might just harbor darker impulses (it helps that Marshall-Green looks quite a bit like Tom Hardy). This opening scene also sets us on edge, confirming as it does that anything can happen at any moment and violence is always just around the corner.

We soon learn that Will once lived in the mansion to which they are headed with his now ex-wife Eden (Tammy Blanchard), who is throwing the dinner party with her new husband, David (Michiel Huisman). The other guests are all friends from Will and Eden’s better days, none of whom has seen any of the others for at least two years. Something terrible happened to Will and Eden (it is carefully revealed over a lengthy period of time, so I won’t disclose it here), which forced them both into their own modes of retreat (Eden’s involved disappearing into a grief support group in Mexico, which is where she met David). Thus, there is plenty of awkwardness as old friends are reunited and new people are introduced; as these things tend to go, familiar patterns quickly re-emerge of both the friendly and antagonistic variety.

Kusama is in no rush here, and much of the film’s first half plays like a jittery observation of upper-crust social norms and rituals masking a lot of underlying tension, regret, and dysfunction. Although the wine flows and the lights glow, little indicators of menace—locked doors that don’t need to be locked, cell phone service strangely hard to come by, sudden shifts in personality—gradually build, although Will is the only one who seems truly aware that something is wrong. But, is something wrong? Is Will just being paranoid, or is there something truly sinister underlying the clinking glasses and slightly naughty party games? Screenwriters Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi (taking a break from big-budget studio fare like Clash of the Titans and R.I.P.D.) keep us guessing, at times seeming to confirm Will’s concerns, only to undercut them a few minutes later. When John Carroll Lynch arrives midway through as a new friend of Eden and David’s, it seems like the deal is sealed that bad things are afoot, but even then Will’s premonitions are shown to be possibly misguided.

Buttressed by an excellent cast (Tammy Blanchard is particularly good as Eden, who could be either the most fragile or the most ruthless character on screen), the elegantly foreboding musical score by veteran composer Theodore Shapiro (who scored several of Kusama’s previous films, including her 2000 feature debut Girlfight), and the inky-amber cinematography by Bobby Shore (Goon, A Dark Truth), The Invitation is immediately engrossing and, unlike so many other thrillers, effectively patient. Antsy, impatient viewers will want to get to the meat of things, but the film’s real pleasure is its delayed gratification, which is thankfully not punctuated by a lot of fake scares and red herrings. There is misdirection to be sure, and we can’t be certain until the final moments of who, exactly, is to be feared, but The Invitation keeps our hands clenched and our eyes peeled precisely because getting there is just as intense as the destination.

Copyright ©2016 James Kendrick

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All images copyright © Drafthouse Pictures

Overall Rating: (3.5)




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