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Walton Goggins is at the height of his career, playing everyone from a gun-slinging Ghoul (Fallout) to an eccentric old man with megachurch money (The Righteous Gemstones) and a conman in Thailand (The White Lotus).
In the midst of all of this, his new movie The Uninvited almost feels tucked away – like a present you quietly unwrap. The soft and devastating indie comedy-drama is both a fairytale and a ghost story. It’s a meditation on regret and the things we leave behind.
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The Uninvited is written and directed by Nadia Conners (Goggins' wife) in her feature-length directorial debut – and is based on a true story that occurred at her and Goggins' home in the Hollywood hills. In the film, retired actress and reluctant stay-at-home-mom Rose (Elizabeth Reaser) and her tightly wound agent husband Sammy (Goggins) set out to host a lush, lavish dinner party for Sammy’s movie star client Gerald (Rufus Sewell).
Things don’t turn out as planned, however, when a confused, elderly woman named Helen (Lois Smith) parks her little Prius in their driveway – and doesn’t remember how to get home, insisting that their house is her home. Their babysitter, Tracy (Kate Comer), immediately jokes that the old woman must be a witch, but as the movie progresses, you start to think that Tracy might be right.
Helen’s arrival creates a chain reaction of sorts, with Rose suddenly reevaluating her entire life, Sammy confronting his own dissatisfaction, and a series of revelations that more or less change the course of everyone’s lives. This includes two particular guests in attendance: Lucien (Pedro Pascal), an effortlessly cool actor and Rose’s old flame, and Delia (Eva de Dominici), a hot young actress rising to the top in Hollywood. In the midst of all of this is a phony fortune teller, taking photos of their auras in a rented photobooth, and a hopeful bedtime story about a glowfish told by Rose and Sammy’s bright-eyed son Wilder (Roland Rubio). The house itself is alive, becoming part of the history that Helen insists that she remembers – despite her memory coming in and out as the night goes on.
It’s wild that this is Conners’ first feature-length film, because it’s just so carefully crafted. Every inch of the movie is purposeful, from the gown Rose wears at dinner (which is meant to look like the drapes) to the theme of the play that Rose and Lucien starred in together so many moons ago. One of my favorite parts is the dialogue: not a single drop is clunky or awkward, and there are no throwaway lines – everyone speaks with purpose, even if they only have a few words to say. In fact, the film hits a point where almost every word out of each character’s mouth is something heartbreaking: a revelation, an admission of fear or guilt, a hesitant but strong "no." There’s something especially sad about Pascal’s Lucien, who, despite all of his fame, is so hollowed out and can’t help but confuse his own narcissism for complete sincerity.
"It was important to tell this story," Goggins said during our interview about the film. "I would imagine that there are there are elements of our relationships that are sprinkled throughout – elements of my wife's relationship with her mother, certainly, how my wife has felt at times about her own career and what she had to give up in the Sophie's Choice that she was faced with. And the loneliness, I suppose, that we all feel."
We get a pretty clear idea of who Sammy is from just the first few moments of the film: he's tightly wound, impatient, worried about his career - and unlikable from the jump. But as the evening goes on, Sammy starts to unravel - and, without giving too much away, we see the softer, more frightened side.
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The Uninvited can be best described with one very specific line from a Sylvia Plath poem: “Something beautiful, but annihilating.” It’s definitely a “comedy of errors,” like the promotional material says, but it hurts. There’s no way to leave the theater without thinking about your own life, your own choices, and calling up your mother to ask if she, after all these years, is satisfied with her own. Whether you think the film is rooted in reality or has a sprinkle of magic, that Helen didn’t show up in the driveway by accident, and that nearly every cryptic phrase out of her mouth is an incantation, is up to you.
The Uninvited is out now in US and UK cinemas. You can find the complete list of theaters and showtimes here.
For more unmissable movie recommendations, check out the previous entries in our weekly Big Screen Spotlight series.
