J Paul Johnson
Catch a trailer or a press release for The Uninvited and the names Walton Goggins and Pedro Pascal are likely to grab the most attention. The two are among Hollywood’s buzziest actors—the former seemingly ubiquitous with his scene-stealing character turns, the latter now a bona fide franchise headliner. To come to this quiet, unassuming, women-centric comedy-drama for their roles, though, is a little like showing up at the wrong party. Goggins and Pascal are little more than foils here, mostly objectionable characters present to make the film’s protagonist better developed, and they are perhaps the most disappointing aspect of The Uninvited. Look beyond them (though in Goggins’ case it can be hard), and The Uninvited is a well-acted, well-directed work of women’s cinema with a surprisingly tender friendship at its core.
Written and directed by first-time feature filmmaker Nadia Conners (who is married to Goggins), The Uninvited—sharing nothing in common with a 2009 horror film by the same name—takes place over a single night in the Hollywood Hills at the home of actress Rose (Elizabeth Reaser) and agent Sammy (Goggins) on the eve of a party Sammy is hosting to fete a potential client (Rufus Sewell). Their marriage, like both of their individual careers, seems on the precipice of failure, and the couple’s therapy sessions seem to have brought out the worst in Sammy in particular. Even before the stimulants, he has all the charm of a boozed-up Richard Burton in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?—so much so that you’ll be forgiven a wince each time he shows up onscreen.
Then again, Goggins’s Sammy is written largely to make Reaser’s Rose appear more complex and sympathetic by comparison. And surely, she is hardly the first Hollywood denizen to regret a marital choice or, for that matter, struggle with the industry’s latent and often explicit ageism. She’s not only struggling to find roles but also balance the demands of motherhood and fend off a flurry of ageist microaggressions. She can be forgiven for her inability to muster even a modicum of enthusiasm for Sammy’s party, which is little more than a potential business transaction dressed up in tony party garb. To complicate matters further, and to lend the film its title, there’s an uninvited guest at the gate.
Her name is Helen, and she arrives by car, lost and confused, her age and apparent dementia leading her to think Rose’s house is Helen’s own. Played by industry vet Lois Smith, Helen is elderly, frail, confused, seemingly lost and in need of the bathroom, and so Rose, forgoing her hostess duties, invites her in. Of course, Helen accidentally locks herself in Rose’s bathroom so that the film’s plot can rely on her ongoing presence, but never mind: hers is the most developed character and the most convincing performance in the film. Smith is a gem as the slightly-addled woman who indeed once lived in what is now Sammy and Rose’s house and whose memories of the past fill Rose with an even greater ennui. As the plot progresses, various characters come and go and are charmed, at least a little, by Helen and her reminiscences.
The party, meanwhile, is replete with stereotypical Hollywood-Hillsers, including not only the guest of honor but a beautiful ingénue, Delia (Eva De Dominici), with whom Sammy seems a little too smitten and hopes to woo for his big project. Another potential mark of Sammy’s is a guest Rose would just as soon not see: Pascal’s Lucien, a successful actor and former lover who owes her an apology. Pascal’s Lucien is less objectionable than Goggins’ Sammy but, aside from his rumpled looks and dimpled charm, lacking any distinct character traits beyond his stardom. He is present primarily to provoke Rose to confront her insecurities and the fact of her deteriorating marriage.
Written originally as a stage play, The Uninvited‘s script largely evidences its theatrical underpinnings. It consists primarily of a series of conversations, some more pointed than others, all aimed at the film’s thesis: that the industry is, as a microcosm of society itself, largely sexist and ageist. That’s one with which Hollywood has been acquainted since The Star and Sunset Boulevard all the way up through this past year’s The Substance and The Last Showgirl. Conners’ script feels largely pedestrian in comparison to these, but the film’s rich cinematography (from DP Robert Leitzell) exploits the setting of the couple’s Hollywood Hills house as a metaphor to lend it a purposeful visual design and cinematic appeal.
It may be the case that The Uninvited‘s thesis is a given, depending on whom you ask, but the film’s three core female characters—the ingénue Delia, the aging actress Rose, and the former actress Helen—are all well and convincingly written, with each of the three actors cast in their roles bringing different strengths to the project. Present in nearly every scene except a handful, Reaser as Rose carries the picture largely with her reactions to the characters and scenarios swirling around her. And Smith is a delight as Helen, who, despite her frequent episodes of delirium, eventually charms every character she meets with her quirky humor and pithy anecdotes—all the while forcing Rose to confront her own destiny as she ages upward and out of the kind of future she’d hoped to enjoy.
All three of these central female characters play an important role in The Uninvited‘s intergenerational tale of Hollywood. The script’s men may be little more than self-important, self-serving pricks, and as far as critiques of Hollywood’s notorious double standards go, The Uninvited‘s is neither especially pointed nor revelatory, but its female characters and their interactions make for a welcome examination of women’s experiences in an industry that never stops exploiting them.
