Movie Review: 'The Invitation' is a Dreary Bore

The Invitation (2022)

Directed by Jessica M. Thompson

Written by Blair Butler

Starring Nathalie Emmanuel, Thomas Doherty, Alana Boden

Release Date August 26th, 2022

The Invitation is an extraordinarily boring and predictable bit of horror nonsense. Though it is competently crafted and not terribly acted, the film holds no life, no energy, and no form of invention. The Invitation is the kind of movie that simply... exists. Competent filmgoers will guess the twist very quickly and what remains of the movie is tedious, aside from one terrific and sadly underutilized supporting performance.

The Invitation stars Nathalie Emmanuel as Evie, a struggling would be artist living in New York City. Evie has recently lost her mother and believes that she has no other living family. This changes when she is gifted a DNA testing kit and free chance to find new relatives. Through this, Evie finds that she has roots, indeed a full family line, living in England. In fact, Evie's Cousin Oliver (Hugh Skinner) happens to be coming to New York on business and wants to have lunch.

Evie agrees and she and Cousin Oliver hit it off. Oliver, being ridiculously rich, invites Evie to come to a family wedding the following week. He even offers to fly her there, first class so that she can stay in a ludicrously expensive castle and take part in all of the finery of being rich. It's also a chance for her to meet her brand new extended family. It's all the picture of perfection with manicured lawns, attentive servants, and a host who happens to be gorgeous and single.

The wedding host is Walter (Thomas Doherty). As far as Evie knows, a member of Walter's family is set to be married to a member of Oliver's family. That's not the case, strangely the film's trailer has already told us what Evie is going to find out later, she is to be the bride. Why the marketing team decided to use this reveal to sell the movie, I have no idea. It's certainly no fault of director Jessica M. Thompson who quite clearly intended this as a shocking reveal.

If only marketing were the biggest problem here, sadly, it's not. Instead, the biggest issue is a high level of predictability, even beyond the over-sharing trailer. Attentive filmgoers will guess in the opening minutes of The Invitation exactly what the big reveal, beyond the wedding, truly is. The scripting and the visual details are... not subtle. Whether it is through clumsiness or feeling the need to hand hold the audience, the makers of The Invitation lay there twist on a little too heavy.

Once you have guessed where the movie is headed, The Invitation becomes a chore. Star Nathalie Emmanuel is sweet but she's overmatched as a movie star. She delivers what is asked of her as an actress but in terms of the intangible star quality, she's hampered by the predictability of the story and the completely lack of surprise in any moment of The Invitation. She also has zero chemistry with Thomas Doherty's Walt whose only lasting impression in this movie comes from his well sculpted jaw line. Hey man, great Jaw.

The only moments in which Nathalie Emmanuel really shines are in the few brief scenes she shares with Courtney Taylor as her best friend, Grace. Taylor brings life that is sorely lacking in The Invitation. She's radiant, she has all of the funny lines in the movie and when Emmanuel and Grace are talking, Emmanuel's performance comes alive for a moment and you see why people see her as a potential future star. Sadly, once the film leaves New York for England, Taylor only appears on Facetime calls to steal the movie for a moment before she's gone far too soon.

Other than Taylor, The Invitation is easy to refuse. (Ha!) (Sorry about the pun, I am deeply ashamed and also incapable of deleting it.) The Invitation is in theaters now. Find my archive of more than 20 years and nearly 2000 movie reviews at SeanattheMovies.Blogspot.com. Follow me on Twitter at PodcastSean and follow the archive blog on Twitter at SeanattheMovies. You can also hear me talking about movies on the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast on your favorite podcasting app.