Released on February 28, 2020, “The Invisible Man” garnered accolades from both the critics and audiences alike. It was a smash-hit with a collection of over 125 million dollars against a 7 million dollar budget. Leigh Whannell’s script and direction were fairly praised, but the real winner came to be Elisabeth Moss, otherwise known as “Queen of TV”. Her performance as an emotionally vulnerable wife traumatized by an abusive relationship was praised by many critics and became one of the favourite performances of 2020 till now.
Probably released earlier than most movies on DVD and “Take Home” basis due to theatres closing worldwide during the pandemic, the DVD version shows many behind-the-scenes moments, deleted scenes and explains the director’s and the actor’s journey throughout the shoot. In one such clip by Screen Rant, Elisabeth Moss talks about the “Emotional Journey” of her character throughout the script and how she managed to portray a dis-balanced life of a wife who was tortured emotionally and physically by her husband.
In this clip Moss focuses on the value of emotional drama as opposed to a plot-driven horror scenario, she explains why she chose the script and how “The Invisible Man” is actually about a woman finding her voice, her strength and her place in society independent of a so-called “Man”. The Blu-Ray version of the movie also features sections like: “Moss Manifested” where Elisabeth Moss describes the physical and emotional challenges she faced while portraying Cecilia, a woman whose truth is constantly questioned by those around her and “Director’s journey” where Whannell takes us through the tour of the production from day one of principal photography.
Based on a novel of the same name by H. G. Wells, “The Invisible Man” generates a horror cum science fiction genre. The film stars Elisabeth Moss, Storm Reid, Aldis Hodge and Harriet Dyer among others. The film follows a woman suffering from an abusive relationship with her rich- scientist husband, things take a darker turn when the woman drugs her husband in order to escape his house and the husband later commits suicide, but things don’t end here as the husband tries to haunt to her wife after the suicide attempt by devising a suit which makes the refractive index of the body similar to air or in other words– makes him invisible. The husband and his lawyer then go on a journey to traumatize and abuse the wife only to discover later that she is pregnant.
The film was especially regarded for the voice it empowered despite being a horror flick. It was also lauded for exploring the camera as a character and deploring horror to generate awareness for complicated and sometimes abusive relationships which take bizarre turns if left as they were.