‘The Invisible Man’: Domestic abuse at its creepiest

Elisabeth Moss (left) plays Cecilia Kass with Oliver Jackson-Cohen as Adrian Griffin in “The Invisible Man.”

We said it before, and we’re only too happy to say it again: If Elisabeth Moss were nominated at the Oscars for her portrayal of a brilliant but self-destructive rock star in Alex Ross Perry’s “Her Smell,” she would have given eventual best actress winner Renee Zellweger’s thespic vanishing act in “Judy” a good fight.

But Elisabeth’s impressive accomplishment in “Her Smell” was hardly a fluke. TV and streaming aficionados know only too well that her performances in her Emmy-, Golden Globe- and SAG (Screen Actors Guild)-winning turns in “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “Top of the Lake” and “Mad Men” were just as delectable.“The Invisible Man,” this week’s must-see chiller, isn’t really the stuff that makes award-giving bodies sit up and notice. But Elisabeth’s gutsy portrayal makes its iffy sci-fi mumbo-jumbo as convincing as it is plausible.

Even in scenes where the 37-year-old actress isn’t tasked to deliver dialogue, she manages to convey the emotional and psychic scars that prevent her character, Cecilia Kass, from forgetting the horrors she went through with her abusive ex-husband, the brilliant but controlling scientist-cum-optics expert Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen, as charismatic as he is menacing).

Moss

In this terrifying tale about love and obsession, Elisabeth plays a woman trapped in a violent marriage. When Cecilia finally decides to put a stop to Adrian’s nonstop abuse, she ends up hiding in the house of her childhood friend, Detective James Lanier (Aldis Hodge) and his daughter Sydney (Storm Reid).

Moreover, Cecilia feels her fears begin to dissipate when news gets around that Adrian, grief-stricken for having lost the only person he couldn’t control, takes his own life. To her surprise, she even inherited $5 million, tax-free—with tricky and sticky strings attached: If she commits any crime, the inheritance will be rescinded.

With the help of her doting sister Alice (Harriet Dyer), who’s getting worried about her fragile mental state, Cecilia begins her arduous journey to recovery—only to get dragged back to her nightmarish past when Adrian begins to make his “presence” felt!

But when the mind-boggling “incidents” become increasingly violent and deadly, Cecilia begins to consider the idea that Adrian’s death could be a hoax! It doesn’t take long before the dead bodies pile up.

As they say, what you can’t see can’t hurt you. Unfortunately, not in Cecilia’s case. Has she lost her mind, as the people around her suggest? Looks like Cecilia can’t get out of Adrian’s grip without a bloody fight—and fight she does.

Harriet Dyer (left) and Moss

The film’s damsel-in-distress theme plays superbly to Elisabeth’s skills as an actor, but she also gets significant help from supporting cast members who complement her believability as a woman at her wits’ end.

“The Invisible Man” also manages to proficiently play up the cyclical nature of domestic or spousal abuse, astutely reflected in Elisabeth’s performance through the invisible but sturdy strings that abusive partners shrewdly manipulate to get their “victims” to do their bidding.

The result? An unnerving portrait of a woman who tries to crawl out of the dark pit she’s found herself in. Statistically, it’s a struggle that one in every four women around the world must hurdle to go from victim to victor. Elisabeth, Oliver and director Leigh Whannell had to process the lead characters’ complex relationship dynamics over a period of days at rehearsals. “We wanted to show the cycle of what these relationships are about—how people always end up returning to them, even though they know better,” Oliver says. “It’s about the pull of what these couples do—and, in this specific case, what Adrian does to hold Cecilia back and get her to where he needs her.

“Adrian is getting exactly what he wants—which is to see Cecilia suffer as she descends into madness!”