It’s sort of numbing to think about how often movie studios retread old ideas. But hey, just saying that is practically a numbing statement on its own, considering how the ‘remake’ has been around for more than a hundred years (seriously, like 1918 was when the trend got started). Whadya bet fans of originals back then were bellyaching about it, too (‘course that’s when ‘social media’ was limited your two best friends). I’ll skip the temptation to throw my opinion on the pile but let’s start this by addressing the fact that Jack Finney‘s 1954 book The Body Snatchers has been adapted four times in Hollywood (with a fifth possibly in the works), not to mention its influence on dozens upon dozens of others movie and TV shows (anyone remember The Faculty?). This ain’t exactly fresh is what I’m saying.
Nonetheless, in the 2007 version, the spin on the theme was relatively minor, putting its weight on politics and the corruptive nature of power and suppression. That in itself has some potential, retaining a bit of the original focus of the book and the first film (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1956), but it’s relatively toothless here, centered mostly on the urgency of a mother and her attempts to rescue her young son, which isn’t entirely without some mild punches. I mean, it’s not a bad movie really, saturated in its averageness. It’s just sort of there. Unremarkable. And transparent. It’s The Invasion.
WHAT IT’S ABOUT: After a devastating Space Shuttle accident during re-entry leaves the craft scattered in pieces over parts of the United States, along with it comes an alien spore that seems invulnerable to heat and cold. First to have consequential contact with it is a director for the CDC, Tucker Kaufman (Jeremy Northam), who, after falling asleep that night, awakens as a man reprogrammed with no emotions. Not long after, others follow, and with his position, arranges to have a “flu inoculation” made ready to distribute the spore with plans to take over all of humanity. It’s a pretty clever plan.
Unwilling to play along is Dr. Carol Bennell (Nicole Kidman), the ex-wife of Kaufman, who, along with her colleague and love(?) interest Dr. Ben Driscoll (Daniel Craig), struggle to find out what’s happening and how to stop it. This includes retrieving Carol’s son Oliver (Jackson Bond) from Kaufman, they believing the child might be immune and be a possible key to stopping the invasion. But come on. Like. It’s always the child. Right?
REVIEW: Just how the title is reduced to two words, the film itself feels a bit fleeced of its power, the film quickly and almost clinically getting to the crash, discovery, and initial infections in the first three minutes. This is a movie with an agenda that has no time for nuance. Character development be damned! Plot points arrive like knocks on the head, doling out and delivering exposition and information systematically to get us quickly and efficiently to the next scene. This includes dialogue that is the very essence of economy, trimming the fat in leaving only the rich, juicy bites of content necessary in making things understood. Not that it’s all that hard to keep up. This is a movie about as predictable as guessing what will happen if you flip a light switch.
Fortunately, there is Kidman, and to a lesser degree, Craig (oh, and an underused Jeffrey Wright) to save the day. But you already know, Kidman is a strong presence in any film, her ability to center the subject around her making this drama feel rather compelling, even if you know more about what is going than she does. She makes schlock feel legit, and as such, genuinely keeps The Invasion mostly a fun watch. Craig is forever molded in our hearts as James Bond (a role he won while filming this one), and so, it’s a little hard to disconnect that while seeing him here, but he’s effective in playing out his part in this, right up the end. So, while director Oliver Hirschbiegel‘s invasion is a little sparse and trips often in running to the end, there is plenty still along the way in making this worth a sit through (including a solid score from the always reliable John Ottman). Even if you decide to take a break here and there.
THAT MOMENT IN: The general problem with a movie like this is how it’s somewhat forced to let the cat out of the proverbial bag rather early. It’s not like by now we don’t know what the story is about. The mystery isn’t in discovering what is going on but rather how to avoid it, which potentially divides the plot into two possibilities: A) chase and escape or B) laboratory investigation. The Invasion sticks mostly to the first but dabbles a bit in the second, which is admittedly the tougher sell to modern attention-distracted audiences (I recommend Michael Crichton‘s exceptional The Andromeda Strain for one that does ‘B’ just right).
That said, as we know what landed on Earth and few in the story do, it’s the classic guessing game of wondering who is and who isn’t turned that keeps the beats on track. And because so, I want to focus on a terrific scene early in the film that sets that pace forward, or at least creates a smart setup for what should follow.
Carol is a psychiatrist, and in the early days after the shuttle accident, arrives at her office to find a long time client in her waiting room. She is Wendy Lenk (Veronica Cartwright), here for an early, apparently unexpected appointment. She looks decidedly distressed.
It begins with a cup of tea, which Wendy admits she is unable to drink because, even though this has been her routine for four years, simply can’t continue. Why? Well, because, as she so desperately states, “My husband is not my husband.” (What a great line). It’s a strange confession, one she admits sound crazy, but can’t deny feels right.
She explains that something is off, that her husband keeps bringing her drinks, even though she doesn’t want them. She says she yelled at him the night before, but he didn’t yell back, a behavior very different from the man she married. She goes on about how he doesn’t react like he used to, and that even in the past when they used to fight, she knew, when he kissed her, he loved her. Now, if he kisses her, there’s nothing.
Then comes the story of Bobo, their faithful dog. It too, she says, noticed things weren’t right, outright attacking her husband when he arrived home. This ended badly for the dog, Wendy painfully recounting how her pet died with a snapped neck at the hands of the callous, cold nature of her emotionless husband. I mean, he threw it out with the trash, like garbage! Who does that? Wendy breaks down in the telling, confused and deeply wounded. Carol listens but isn’t listening like we are.
The thing about the body snatcher movies (and the book they are based on) is the lack of personal freedoms stripped away by an alien species that doesn’t have the ability to emulate the defining emotional elegance of the human animal. It is the central giveaway for those uninfected that make it easy to see that something is wrong. And because this absence of empathy becomes so dominate in the story the further it progresses, it’s sort of ironic that it heightens the emotional state of the people running from it. That’s the wonder of being us, our connection with each other, from end to end on the emotional spectrum.
Such is the case with Wendy, a woman in total emotional breakdown. And it’s the best moment in the film, set early in the story, before it’s made clear an invasion is in place, stuffed with clues about what’s to come (if you’re paying attention). From the drinks, to the kiss, to the dog, to the phrasing of “my husband is not my husband,” these all have payoff later as Carol comes face-to-face with her own descent into the madness, including with her husband as well. (Um, spoilers?)
What’s really good about this is Cartwright herself, who, if you know your movies, was central to the plot of the 1978 remake (and far superior) Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I’m not gonna dismiss Kidman’s fine performance here, not for a second, because she pulls the cart all the way up the hill, but Cartwright is simply perfect. She looks truly ground down and broken, her face betraying a raw ache that lends this exchange some much-need authenticity. Watch how she escalates that pain from her initial attempts at masking the truth to a shredded confession of disbelief at what has happened in her home. This is a performance that gets lost in the noise of what follows, but is best remembered for how well Cartwright takes hold of Wendy. She’s magnetic.
HEADING FOR THE CREDITS: There’s another small but significant moment later in The Invasion with the late Roger Rees, one that I won’t get into, but strong enough that it makes one wish he was far more a part of the plot that he’s given. Either way, by the time it ties up its predictable bow, this is a movie that refuses to take any chances, and while it dabbles in some modern-ish gadgetry and loose themes of post 9-11-isms, it comes up well short of where it should. That said, it works as a generic thriller and a showcase for Kidman, but if none of that is what you’re after, at least let Veronica Cartwright do some magic and remind you of how damn good she really is.