This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
When you're being stalked, every day brings a new surprise.
Plot Overview
It was a dark and stormy night. Bay Area architect Cecilia Kass (Elisabeth Moss) uses stealth to escape the redoubt of her mad scientist, controlling boyfriend Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen.) She gets a lift from her concerned sister Emily Kass (Harriet Dyer) and takes sanctuary with her very good (black) friend James Lanier (Aldis Hodge) whom her ex doesn't know of. Slowly she begins to see manifestations of her ex's presence but family and friends assure her he's just gotten into her head, not into her house, and anyway, he's committed suicide so should be gone for good.
Unfortunately, he's an “optics ground breaker” capable of all kinds of sleight of hand, the latest of which is an invisibility suit, which is just what you don't want a “narcissist sociopath” who's got your number to have. Life does not get any easier for ‘C’ when the overworked S.F. police think her guilty of stuff, her social support network deem her crazy, and her doctor tells her she's pregnant. Any rescue will have to come from herself.
Ideology
To show her appreciation to James,
‘C’ uses a (conditional) windfall to buy her fixer-upper
friend a new stepladder that she stands unfolded in the house, wrapped
in a ribbon and bow, leading to a present on top for his teenage daughter
Sydney (Storm Reid,) like the star on top of a Christmas tree.
Furthermore, we learn that ‘C’ was just an “ordinary suburban girl” not worthy of Adrian's attention, who met her at a party. Guessing the password number to his lab ‘C’ uses (“How romantic”) the date they met, 12–14— Oh, that would have made it a Christmas party. An ordinary suburban girl would have already been subjected to the myth of an invisible stalker. She would have been told Santa (and his elves) watch everything she does to put her on his naughty or nice list. You can never see them watching, and although they do it year round, it doesn't become a real concern until a couple weeks before the big guy's day. This movie cleverly plays on existing fears.
It gets worse when we compare the pounding ocean waves at the film's start to Noah as a type of Santa Claus. Consider Santa provisioning his sleigh with gifts manufactured by elves at the North Pole. Let's compare Santa's sleigh with Noah's ark. Researcher Mark DeWayne Combs working from Genesis and ancient sources tells us, “we can reasonably propose accurate proportions of the ark to be 510 feet long, 85 feet wide and 51 feet in height” (27.) That would dwarf the people working on it making them look like elves. Furthermore, “Christ himself referenced the flood (Matthew 24:36-39) … that those outside of Noah's immediate family ‘knew not until the flood came and took them all away.’ … This brings a detail that would impact the choice of location — the absolute necessity of isolation” (Combs 52). In our modern Santa myth, the elves' construction takes place at the supremely isolated North Pole.
Santa's sleigh is pulled by eight reindeer harnessed in pairs. Noah's ark was filled with pairs of exotic animals. (Gen. 7:17) “And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lifted up above the earth.” Santa's sleigh also flies up above the earth. The ark landed on (Gen. 8:5) “the tops of the mountains”, the roof of the world. The sleigh lands on the rooftops, too.
Next, Santa comes down the chimney to
take care of the families on his route. Noah himself collapsed in
a drunken heap to deal with the families in turn. (Gen. 9:18-19) “And the sons of
Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth:
and Ham is the father of Canaan. These are the three sons of Noah:
and of them was the whole earth overspread.” At this point
he's to take care of all his three children and the grandkids, and so
cover all the children on earth, not violating any laws of physics.
Here's what happened. (Gen. 9:20-23) “And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.” The song, “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” tells us, “He's making a list, checking it twice, gonna find out who's naughty or nice.” Ham was naughty in the same way invisible Adrian is naughty pulling the comforter off a sleeping Cecilia and Sydney.
Noah sorts out his gifts according to his naughty and nice lists. (Gen. 9:24-27) “And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son [Ham] had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.” Shem and his brother Japheth were a nice pair as were Ham and his son Canaan a naughty pair. The blessings come down through the generations by means of what we call the Christmas spirit, and so do the warnings at least, here embedded in a movie.
Cecilia escapes from the beachfront lair to be picked up by arrangement in her sister's car. This would represent the two brothers, “God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem.” ‘C’ through some fuss brings Zeus the dog out with her. That represents the rescue of the animals from Noah's flood. Lastly, Adrian comes running out, behind the dog in status. He represents Ham's servile line to his two brothers, “and Canaan shall be his servant.”
More germane to modern times is perhaps the lineage of Cush. Cush was also a son of Ham (Gen. 10:6), settling in Africa. Cush is Hebrew meaning black. Researcher Bodie Hodge confirms that “As a general trend, Ham is the father of many peoples in Africa” (122). Dr. Ide adds, “Ham sired four sons: Cush (translates as ‘black’) … and Canaan the youngest” (62).
Adrian's invisibility suit when not energized is entirely black. When it starts to fail due to wear and tear, sections of black torso come into view. By now the movie's characters are suitably alarmed and we see armed civilians and police alike ready to unload their weapons at the first sight of a black torso. “The Invisible Man” is hardly political, and the audience is by this point sympathetic to the quick shooters. It should probably be taken as the writer's shameless effort to use existing fears to add horror to horror.
Production Values
“” (2020) was written and directed by Leigh Whannell capping a number of past takeoffs from H.G. Wells's sci-fi novella “The Invisible Man.” It stars Elisabeth Moss, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, and Harriet Dyer. The cast did a pretty good job. Elisabeth Moss is superb as Cecilia Kass. She looks the part of a plain girl highly educated but can get prettied up, too.
MPAA rated it R for some strong bloody violence, and language. This version focuses more on the victim than on the scientist, and the tension in it is palpable. The pacing never gets bogged down.
Review Conclusion w/ Christian Recommendation
I first saw the 1933 version of “The Invisible Man” as a boy, and for months afterwards, if not for years, I was sure to hand check my room each night to make sure he was not lurking somewhere. This one is scarier, but I'm grown up now and don't have to check my room—except once or twice. I'm not sure why this story is so scary, it just is.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Edge of your seat action-packed. Suitability For Children: Not Suitable for Children of Any Age. Special effects: Absolutely amazing special effects. Video Occasion: Fit For a Friday Evening. Suspense: Don't watch this movie alone. Overall movie rating: Five stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture quoted from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Print. Software.
Combs, Mark DeWayne. End the Beginning. USA: Splinter in the Mind's Eye Pub., 2014. Print.
Hodge, Bodie. Tower of Babel: The Cultural History of Our Ancestors. Green Forest, AR: New Leaf Pub., 2013. Print.
Ide, Arthur Frederick. Noah & the Ark: The Influence of Sex, Homophobia and Heterosexism in the Flood Story and its Writing. Las Colinas: Monument Press, 1992. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org