Movie, music and TV reviews by Matt Neal, a Rotten Tomatoes-accredited ABC Radio film critic (also an author, musician, journalist and all-round okay guy).
The cinemas are open again... no, wait... they're closed again... no, hang on....
Anyway, in between Victorian lockdowns I'll be trying to get back to the cinemas for reviews, but I can't leave this project unfinished. I will finish it dammit!
Back in the 1998, I started working my way through the original version of this list as a way to educate myself about film. I was a know-it-all 17 year-old, and this list made me realise I knew nothing.
I'm trying to find new things to say about these films, which is impossible, and many of the reviews will include links to some of the things that have already been said, which are far more erudite than anything I have to say.
But mostly, I'm trying to express what exactly it is about these films that makes them great.
This is a version of a review airing on ABC Radio Ballarat and South West Victoria on March 20, 2020.
(M) ★★ Director: David S. F. Wilson. Cast: Vin Diesel, Eiza González, Guy Pearce, Sam Heughan, Toby Kebbell, Lamorne Morris, Alex Hernandez, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, Talulah Riley.
Pictured: Inappropriate social distancing.
There's never been a worse time to release a film, let alone launch a cinematic universe. But just as the COVID-19 outbreak was turning from epidemic to pandemic, Valiant Comics unveiled Bloodshot - a film debut for one of their best known characters that they hoped would be the vanguard for more movies.
The film has scraped to a box office of US$28.4m worldwide against a budget of US$48m amid cinema closures everywhere. Bloodshot probably would have made its money back in a different era. Hell, it might have even earned enough to at least financially warrant a franchise.
But that probably won't happen now. Bloodshot will pop up on streaming platforms eventually, or it may even slide back into cinemas when this whole crazy coronavirus saga is over. But is it worth seeing or even spawning a filmic universe? Not really.
Diesel stars as Ray Garrison, a top-notch soldier killed in the line of duty and brought back to life by Rising Spirit Technologies and its head scientist Dr. Emil Harting (Pearce). With bio-mechanical enhancements and a thirst for revenge against the man who killed his wife, Garrison AKA Bloodshot is unleashed on a world that has no idea how to stop him.
SPOILER ALERT: DON'T WATCH THIS TRAILER IF YOU DON'T WANT THE MOVIE'S BIG REVEAL SPOILED FOR YOU.
The script is as blunt and dumb as you would expect, and any hope of this subverting the superhero genre in anyway disappears quickly. The ideas are okay, and the big reveal is strong, but the film never moves deeper to find any themes, nor does it move in a direction that feels fresh or interesting. Its characters are one-dimensional and even the character with the most depth - Bloodshot - will draw little emotion of audiences.
The film's strong suit is its action, and first-time director Wilson has a thirst for these sequences but over-edits them. A shoot-out in a tunnel filled with flour is visually fascinating if somewhat edgeless, while a running street battle and the big finale do a decent enough job to get the blood pumping.
But the film's attempts at hitting emotional depths reveal the limitations in Vin Diesel's abilities, confirming once again that he is a poor man's Rock. As for Pearce, he is absolutely slumming it and picking up a paycheck. Best on ground is Lamorne Morris, who seems to have stumbled in from a different movie. At least he provides a ray of sunshine as uber-hacker Wigans, but around him, any attempts at humour fall flat.
Bloodshot is painfully predictable and is never exciting or interesting enough to overcome this predictability. It can't get past its B-grade script, and it's only the presence of Diesel and Pearce that got it into cinemas in the first place.
In spite of all this, I can't help but feel sorry for the film. Its release timing was unfortunate, robbing the movie of an audience that wouldn't have cared for my criticisms and would have lapped up the ballistic energy and Diesel's unstoppable menace. Cult status awaits Bloodshot on the other side of the coronavirus era.
This is a version of a review airing on ABC Bendigo on March 16, 2020, and on ABC Radio Ballarat and South West Victoria on March 20, 2020.
(M) ★★★★ Director: Peter Cattaneo. Cast: Kristin Scott Thomas, Sharon Horgan, Emma Lowndes, Gaby French, Lara Rossi, Amy James-Kelly, India Ria Amarteifio, Laura Checkley, Jason Flemyng, Greg Wise.
Their rendition of Reign In Blood brought the house down.
War films are a dime a dozen - "back at home" films are far less common.
But this is part of what makes Military Wives so fascinating and so empathetic. Yes, it's an entirely predictable film about a group of women coming together to sing, but it's so much more, largely thanks to the situation these women are in, the psychological effects of said situation, and the way the beautifully intelligent script explores all of that with heart and humour.
The film is inspired by the real-life Military Wives Choirs, which exist on British military bases around the world. Through the eyes of two very different women - the uptight Kate (Scott Thomas) and the laidback Lisa (Horgan) - we see the formation of the very first choir during a British army deployment in Afghanistan.
So much of Military Wives plays out exactly as you'd expect - the chalk-and-cheese relationship between Kate and Lisa, various characters' unresolved issues, the possibility of someone's partner dying, and the big public finale. Yet despite its predictability, the film is fascinating, enjoyable and moving.
Much of this comes down to the script by Rachel Tunnard and Rosanne Flynn. It moves quickly, doesn't labour its points, and never talks down to the audience. But best of all, it makes its characters feel real and fully fleshed out quickly and easily. We like these women and understand them in a short amount of time, which gets the audience on board very early on. From there, we're willing to follow them anywhere.
In the hands of Oscar nominee Scott Thomas and a collection of excellent TV talent led by the wonderful Horgan, Tunnard and Flynn's script is delivered deftly. The cast has enough diversity and flexibility to cover all the laughs and loss, which means the humour is gentle but welcome, and the big moments of pathos really hit home.
The film's closest relative in British cinema is The Full Monty, which is not surprising considering Cattaneo directed both. But this is better than its ancestor - the characters are stronger, the emotions are deeper, and the film has more to say in the way it tackles grief, loss, denial, and social isolation, while also digging into the oft-forgotten world of those left behind when the decision-makers force others to go off and fight their wars for them.
Military Wives is not innovative, but it's effective and affecting, which is all you can really ask for, no matter how predictable the story.
Triple J's Hottest 100 of the Decade has been run and won, and colour me surprised. I didn't see that coming. Not that I was totally surprised that Tame Impala won - more that I thought there were more popular songs by Tame Impala. Shows what I know.
Anyway, here are several profound (and not so profound) takeaways from Saturday's countdown.
Where are the women?
The past decade has seen a huge increase in the number of female artists appearing at the pointy end of Hottest 100s. In the top 10s of Hottest 100s in the last decade, there were a total of 16 solo female artists and 40 tracks featuring female vocalists. Compare that with the top 10s of the '00s - a total of five solo women, and 13 female vocalists. With all that in mind, the Hottest 100 of the Decade feels like a backwards step.
The top 10 was devoid of female solo artists and featured just three women vocalists - the lowest figures since 2015. Triple j's own figures state "63 songs were from male artists or all-male groups, 11 from female artists or all-female groups, and 26 songs involving both male and female artists". Compare this with 2019: "57 songs were from male artists or all-male groups; 29 from female artists or all-female groups, and 14 songs involved both male and female artists".
The temporary uncancelling of Sticky Fingers
Sydney band Sticky Fingers went from triple j darlings to blacklisted in a short space of time due to allegations of sexist and racial abuse made against their lead singer. As a result, they went on hiatus in 2016, but came back in 2018 with a disastrous and unapologetic interview on triple j's Hack. Venues and festivals dropped them, and StiFi haven't been played on triple j since.
That was until last week, when they had two songs between 200 and 101, with a further three songs in the Hottest 100, including Australia Street at #15. Each song was back-announced with zero comment from the presenters, and you could almost hear the bitten tongues and gritted teeth. If you want comments, just check out Twitter.
Triple J listeners like to pretend to be woke until it becomes a choice between standing up against abuse or voting for sticky fingers #Hottest100ofthedecade
If you look up "slowburn" in the dictionary there's a picture of the single artwork for Rufus Du Sol's Innerbloom. Not only is the tune a nine-minute ride to the top of a rave wave but its success is equally slow on the burn. It failed to make the Hottest 100 in 2015, but What So Not's remix landed at #30 the very next year. Finally, its moment in the sun came on Saturday, when both the nine-minute original and the What So Not remix made the countdown at #5 and #64 respectively - the first time a song and its remix have appeared in the same countdown.
Innerbloom wasn't the only Hottest 100 virgin on Saturday. Adele, who has probably only ever been played on triple j as a joke, made it to #97 with Rolling In The Deep, which is kind of cool, to be honest. There were seven other songs making their first appearance in a Hottest 100 - Sticky Fingers' Rum Rage, Avicii's Levels, Azealia Banks' 212, Robyn's Dancing On My Own, J Cole's No Role Modelz, Rex Orange County's Loving Is Easy, and Kendrick Lamar's M.A.A.D City. Welcome to the club.
Rushing back (again and again)
Here's a list of the acts with the most appearances in Hottest 100s over the past decade:
16 appearances - Flume
12 - Kanye West, The Wombats
11 - Hilltop Hoods, Illy, Kendrick Lamar, Tame Impala
10 - Flight Facilities, Florence Welch (Florence & The Machine), Lorde, RÜFÜS/Rufus Du Sol, Scarlett Stevens (San Cisco), Thundamentals
9 - Ball Park Music, Billie Eilish, DMA’s, Florence And The Machine, Peking Duk, San Cisco, Sticky Fingers, The Amity Affliction, Vance Joy
Now here's a list of the acts with the most appearances in Saturday's Hottest 100 of the Decade:
7 appearances - Flume
5 - Kanye West
4 - Tame Impala, Kendrick Lamar
3 - Arctic Monkeys, Gang of Youths, Sticky Fingers, Hilltop Hoods, Childish Gambino,
2 - Rüfüs Du Sol, Angus & Julia Stone, Matt Corby, Chet Faker, Lorde, DMA's, Jay-Z, Flight Facilities, The Wombats, Frank Ocean, Disclosure, Hermitude, Sia, Bon Iver, Ruel.
See any similarities?
Let's expand it out to appearances in the Hottest 200 for the sake of completeness:
9 appearances - Flume
7 - Kanye West
6 - Kendrick Lamar
5 - Gang of Youths, Sticky Fingers, Frank Ocean, Ruel
4 - Tame Impala, Arctic Monkeys, Childish Gambino, Lana Del Rey,
3 - Hilltop Hoods, Rufus Du Sol, Lorde, Thundamentals, Florence Welch/Florence & The Machine, Ocean Alley
Turns out the best way to do well in a decade-long countdown is have lots of entries in countdowns of the decade. Who knew?
Also: bad luck, Illy.
The biggest losers
There were some big tunes that ended up in the 200-101 segment of the poll, including two songs that came in at #2 in their respective years (Little Red's Rockit and Flume's Rushing Back). There were also two #3s, four #4s, and three #5s sitting in the lower 100. But there were plenty of previous top 10 entries that really fell from grace, landing somewhere lower than 200. Here is a list of the songs that plummeted from 10+ to -200, as compiled by Hottest 100 guru Patrick Avenell, arranged by the number they landed in their year of release.
#5 Amy Shark - I Said Hi
#6 Marcus Marr & Chet Faker - The Trouble with Us, Dean Lewis - Be Alright
#7 Cee Lo Green - Fuck You, Chet Faker - Gold, Jarryd James - Do You Remember, Pnau - Go Bang
#8 360 & Gossling - Boys like You, Chet Faker - 1998, The Jungle Giants - Heavy Hearted
#9 The Jezabels - Endless Summer, The Weeknd - Can't Feel My Face, Peking Duk feat. Elliphant - Stranger, Vance Joy - Lay It On Me
#10 Mark Ronson - Somebody To Love, The Rubens - My Gun, Asgeir - King And Cross, Disclosure feat. Lorde - Magnets, The Weeknd & Daft Punk - Starboy, Hilltop Hoods - Exit Sign
You chose... poorly
The bookies didn't get it right. 100 Warm Tunas didn't either, Patrick Avenell didn't, and I failed too. It seems no one saw Tame Impala coming. Across a couple of bookies, the top five tracks were among the favourites, all except for The Less I Know The Better. Overall it was roughly the eighth favourite, paying out about $15.
As for social media aggregator 100 Warm Tunas, here's its top 10, with the actual final position in brackets:
1. Covered In Chrome - Violent Soho (4)
2. Magnolia - Gang Of Youths (6)
3. Do I Wanna Know? - Arctic Monkeys (3)
4. Innerbloom - RUFUS DU SOL (5)
5. The Less I Know The Better- Tame Impala (1)
6. Somebody That I Used To Know - Gotye ft. Kimbra (2)
7. It's Nice To Be Alive - Ball Park Music (17)
8. Breezeblocks - Alt-J (12)
9. Midnight City - M83 (22)
10. Runaway - Kanye West ft. Pusha T (14)
As you can see, it nailed the top six, just in the wrong order.
And how did I do? Not so well. There were two people at our Hottest 100 that beat me in our top 10 competition (they picked eight of the top 10!). Here's my top 20, with actual final positions in brackets (notice the lack of The Less I Know The Better - shows what I know):
1. Somebody That I Used To Know - Gotye feat. Kimbra (2)
2. Riptide - Vance Joy (13)
3. Royals - Lorde (16)
4. Never Be Like You - Flume feat. Kai (8)
5. Innerbloom - Rufus Du Sol (5)
6. Covered In Chrome - Violent Soho (4)
7. Breezeblocks - Alt-J (12)
8. Lonely Boy - The Black Keys (45)
9. Do I Wanna Know? - Arctic Monkeys (3)
10. King Kunta - Kendrick Lamar (23)
11. Adore - Amy Shark (51)
12. This Is America - Childish Gambino (90)
13. Big Jet Plane - Angus & Julia Stone (9)
14. Let Me Down Easy - Gang Of Youths (19)
15. Video Games - Lana Del Rey (29)
16. Holdin' On - Flume (18)
17. Let It Happen - Tame Impala (26)
18. Talk Is Cheap - Chet Faker (11)
19. Bad Guy - Billie Eilish (71)
20. Confidence - Ocean Alley (35)
Love is forever
If there's one thing that's universal, that carries on from decade to decade, it's the uncertainty of love. Just look at the top three songs in the Hottest 100. They're about watching your crush leave a party with someone else (The Less I Know The Better), a typical break-up (Somebody That I Used To Know), and being unsure whether your love is reciprocated (Do I Wanna Know?). Music may change, but the craziness of love is a constant.
Picking a winner in triple j's upcoming Hottest 100 of the decade is not going to be easy. It's sure as hell going to be harder than picking a winner in an annual countdown. I'm no mathemagician but it's at least going to be 10 times more difficult. Yay, maths!
So how can you predict a winner in this race (which takes place on Saturday March 14) or even a top 10?
Well, there are lots of things you can take into account. Such as....
What we know so far
Over the past week, triple j has been counting down from 200 to 101, which has taken some surprising songs out of the Hottest 100 (goodbye Uptown Funk). All of the #1s are still in the race, but two #2s are gone (Flume's Rushing Back and Little Red's Rockit). There are also two #3s, four #4s, and three #5s out of contention, with 2010 the most pilfered year so far. That theoretically leaves 39 songs that made it into previous top fives still in contention, which is a pretty good place to start building a top 10.
What is fascinating so far is the randomness of it all. G Flip's Drink Too Much finished #6 just months ago behind Tones & I's Dance Monkey (#4), yet in this countdown G Flip was higher (#166 vs #182). Also 16 songs that didn't feature in a previous Hottest 100 have landed between 200 and 101. Twelve of those songs have been hip hop tracks, including two Frank Ocean tracks, and two Kanye West songs. Make of that what you will. So far the most successful acts between 200 and 101 have been Ruel, Lana Del Rey, Thundamentals and Frank Ocean, with three songs each.
Past winners
Theoretically speaking, the top 10 songs of the decade will be the ten winners of the Hottest 100 from each of the ten years, right? While the popularity of songs ebbs and flows over the years, this is actually not a bad idea for getting at least a few guaranteed* correct guesses in your top 10 (*note: there are absolutely no guarantees). The best and most informative precursor to this decade countdown is triple j's Hottest 100 Of The Past 20 Years, which took place in 2013 to celebrate two decades of the Hottest 100 being a yearly countdown.
In the top 11 songs of the 20 Years poll, there were five songs that had won a previous Hottest 100. Perhaps surprisingly though, not all of the 20 previous winners made it into the top 100. For the record, five #1s that didn't make the list - Denis Leary's Asshole (1993), The Offspring's Pretty Fly (For A White Guy) (1998), Alex Lloyd's Amazing (2001), Bernard Fanning's Wish You Well (2005), and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis' Thrift Shop (2012).
The Hottest 100 of the first 20 years
In fact, 2013's 20 Years countdown is full of fascinating data that could be useful for predicting a top 10. For example, there were eight songs that made the 20 Years countdown that are eligible for this decade's poll - alt-j's Breezeblocks, Gotye & Kimbra's Somebody That I Used To Know, Matt Corby's Brother, The Black Keys' Lonely Boy, Of Monsters & Men's Little Talks, Lana Del Rey's Video Games, Angus & Julia Stone's Big Jet Plane, and Foster The People's Pumped Up Kicks, none of which landed between 200 and 101.
Even more telling is the fact that in the 20 Years poll, 64 out of the 100 songs had appeared in the top 10 of a previous Hottest 100. In other words, almost two-thirds of the list could be found in the top 10 per cent of previous lists. Sifting through previous top 10s would at least narrow your choices down to 100 songs, not 1000.
The answer is six songs. One of those was Foo Fighters' Everlong, which made it into the top 10 in the 20 Years poll, despite failing to get voted into the 1997 (or '98) countdown (note: an acoustic version was voted into the 2006 Hottest 100). If this doesn't effectively demonstrate that anything could happen in the Decade countdown, then nothing else will.
The bookies
There are at least three betting agencies (Sportsbet, Unibet and Betfair) were taking money on the upcoming Hottest 100 up until recently (although Betfair has either closed its books or dropped out). Initially all three had Gotye's Somebody That I Used To Know as favourite and after that the odds varied wildly, but with a day to go things have settled down. Gotye is still favourite followed by RUFUS' Innerbloom, Arctic Monkeys' Do I Wanna Know?,and Violent Soho's Covered in Chrome. After that things get a bit messy.
But buyer beware - Sportsbet had the shortest odds on the eventual Hottest 100 winner in 2017 and 2018, but got it wrong in 2019. So don't treat the bookies as gospel. Also, they had Uptown Funk in their top 20 favourites, and that ship has already sunk.
100 Warm Tunas
It's also a matter of caveat emptor for social media aggregator 100 Warm Tunas. In its four years of existence it has a 50 per cent success rate of picking the overall winner. This time around, it looks even less likely to be able to pick the #1. This is because the number songs being voted for is probably going to be higher, which means its limited sample size will come into play. At the time of writing it had sampled just over one per cent of the likely possible total number of votes.
But what is Warm Tunas predicting? At the time of writing the Warm Tunas top five is reasonably close to what the bookies are saying, although it puts Violent Soho's Covered In Chrome at #1. In the past, picking a top 10 that mingles Warm Tunas with Sportsbet has been a solid way to find a top 10.
Patrick Avenell
If you want to know what's going to be in the top 10, ask this guy. He's on Twitter (@patrickavenell) and he's really good at it.
Most popular bands of the decade
It seems likely that acts that have polled well in Hottest 100s over the past decade will do well in the Hottest 100 of the decade. Right? So I did some digging, made a spreadsheet, and here's what I found. (Just a note - this counts total appearances, including featured spots on other people's songs and remixes)
16 appearances - Flume
12 - Kanye West, The Wombats
11 - Hilltop Hoods, Illy, Kendrick Lamar, Tame Impala
10 - Flight Facilities, Florence Welch (Florence & The Machine), Lorde, RÜFÜS/Rufus Du Sol, Scarlett Stevens (San Cisco), Thundamentals
9 - Ball Park Music, Billie Eilish, DMA’s, Florence And The Machine, Peking Duk, San Cisco, Sticky Fingers, The Amity Affliction, Vance Joy
Cover bands
The songs that do well in the Hottest 100 of the decade will be the ones that have lived on beyond their release. They will have become staples on people's playlists, been flogged on other radio stations, turned into festival favourites, or perhaps found a new lease of life on TV and film soundtracks. Or they may have found their way into the setlists of cover bands.
This is a strange theory, and maybe it's a really regional thing, but hear me out. Back in 2013 when the Hottest 100 of the past 20 years happened, I noticed that a lot of the top songs had featured in the set list of a lot of local cover bands (including my own) at one point or another. And they were the songs that went off, without fail. Wonderwall, Seven Nation Army, Mr Brightside, These Days... even Last Goodbye and Everlong if the cover band was a little more adventurous. This isn't foolproof, but if your local cover bands have added some post-2010 triple j-friendly songs to their setlists, give some thought to what those tunes are.
This is a version of a review that aired on ABC Radio Ballarat and South West Victoria on March 6, 2020.
(M) ★★ Director: Nat Faxon & Jim Rash Cast: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Will Ferrell, Miranda Otto, Julian Grey, Ammon Jacob Ford, Zoë Chao, Zach Woods, Giulio Berruti.
"Here's to wearing impractical amounts of clothing, being constantly cold and wet, and falling down a lot."
Every time Hollywood remakes a great non-English-language film, a puppy dies, a fairy loses its wings, and I have to resist the urge to go on a rant berating people who refuse to watch subtitled films for no good reason.
Yes, not all English-language remakes are bad. The Departed, Let Me In, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - these are great Americanised versions of great foreign films.
But mostly they're like this very disappointing and bland remake of Swedish film Force Majeure. Force Majeure is critically acclaimed for its blend of comedy and drama, but that is the exact area in which Downhill fails. I'm generalising here, but Europeans are much better at mixing the bleak with the bellylaughs. Americans... not so much. Downhill... definitely not so much.
Downhill is the story of a happily married couple (Dreyfuss and Ferrell) and their two kids (Grey and Ford), and focuses on the fallout from a very key moment of their skiing holiday in the Austrian Alps - a near-avalanche they all survive. But their reactions to the avalanche, and what comes after, threaten to tear them apart.
Downhill has one main problem - its tone. It's supposed to be a comedy-drama and it's not funny, while the majority of its drama is melodramatic. It occasionally digs deep, hits a nerve, and something powerful and raw comes out, but this is a rarity. The best example of the film's tonal failure is Otto's chalet owner Charlotte, who appears to have wandered in from another movie, most likely a broad brash comedy also starring Ferrell.
Despite the film's inadequacies, Dreyfus is great. Her character feels real, and handles the emotional highs and lows nicely. Ferrell isn't so successful though. He's lost in a netherworld between his usual goofiness and allowing his underused dramatic chops to shine. He shows admirable restraint yet always appears on the verge of unleashing one of his stock-in-trade improvised non sequiturs or hapless rages, and never quite seems at home with the character. His presence is predominantly distracting - he seems miscast for the most part.
Much of the fault has to lie with directors Faxon and Rash, who made the excellent The Way, Way Back. They don't land on their tone early, so the film is a real grind, despite being only 90 minutes long. There are breakthrough moments, mainly when Dreyfus and Ferrell have it out and the film touches on some painfully accurate themes about parenting, marriage, sacrifice and midlife crises.
But for the most part, Downhill never finds its groove, despite Dreyfus' best efforts. Ferrell can do straight roles, but it's almost as if the filmmakers weren't sure how to use him here, and as a result, the whole film suffers.
The Mummy was destined to be the beginning of Universal's Dark Universe, which would have set up a shared cinematic universe for the Invisible Man, Frankenstein's Monster and Bride, the Creature From The Black Lagoon and more. Johnny Depp was even signed on to star in The Invisible Man. But The Mummy crumbled with the critics and bit the dust at the box office, and Universal wisely put that idea back in the crypt.
Then someone knocked on Saw co-creator Leigh Whannell's door, and as a result, we have a clever modern spin on HG Wells' late-19th-century sci-fi novel. By teaming with Moss (who reportedly helped develop the character and fine-tune the script with Whannell), he has made a memorable if imperfect frightener that recasts the story as a harrowing domestic violence horror.
Moss is Cecilia, an abuse survivor who flees her increasingly controlling partner Adrian (Jackson-Cohen). When Adrian turns up dead from an apparent suicide soon after, Cecilia thinks she is finally free of her psychotic ex. But strange occurrences lead her to suspect that Adrian isn't dead, and that his research into optics has borne fruit in the form on an invisibility suit. Will anyone believe that she's being haunted by an invisible man?
The Invisible Man's neatest trick is spinning its story to focus on the titular character's victim. It makes the film truly scary, while allowing it to serve as a metaphor for abusive relationships and the impacts abusers have on their partners, even long after separation.
Moss is electrifying in the central role, running through fragility, shock, fear, mania, determination, and ultimately strength. It's a full-blooded performance that hits every note perfectly. This film would not have worked as well as it does without a turn like Moss' and she deserves all the plaudits she can get.
She's ably supported by Hodge, Dyer and Dorman, but the other big star is screenwriter-director Whannell, who ratchets up the fear and action as the story progresses across its almost-too-long runtime of two hours. His screenplay is delicately balanced, slowly and adroitly tilting into horror territory at just the right point. His direction is deft too, not relying on jump scares and pulling out almost as much adrenaline from shots of empty chairs and doorways. Whannell seems fully aware that sometimes what you can't see is the scariest thing of all, and uses this idea to full effect.
Some elements of the plot don't hold up to much analysis, and overthinking the machinations of the antagonist has a bit of a house-of-cards effect, but in the moment none of this matters. The Invisible Man is scary in a largely goreless way, but more importantly it's a whipsmart update of an old story that has some salient and important things to see about domestic violence.
