Film: “The Uninvited” starring Walton Goggins
Walton Goggins was so terrific as Rick in “White Lotus, S3,” I was curious to see what he was like when his character didn’t have a drinking problem or wasn’t wearing a Hawaiian shirt.
After seeing him in “The Uninvited,” a new indie by Nadia Conners, I’ve come to the conclusion he needs to choose his projects more carefully.
Goggins plays Sammy, a forty-something Hollywood agent with a house in the Hills, and a beautiful wife Rose (Elizabeth Reaser), who has retired from acting. What do you call a man who has everything? Eternally dissatisfied. Perhaps to cheer him up, Rose plans a soiree and invites Sammy’s clients.
Just as the party is about to begin, Helen, an elderly stranger (Lois Smith), drives up in a convertible and parks next to the house. She seems to be lost—not just geographically but mentally. Realizing the old woman’s a bit fuzzy, Rose invites her inside. Helen looks around and promptly claims she once lived there. Sammy, who is taken aback when he finds Helen in his house, gets even angrier when he learns she has locked herself in the bathroom and broken the door handle.
A lot of husband-wife vitriol between Rose and Sammy follows, which isn’t particularly engaging and actually rather cringe. This unpleasantness is magnified when the invited guests do show up. They include Gerald (Rufus Sewell from “The Diplomat”) and Lucian (Pedro Pascal), both sleazy former lovers of Rose. Meanwhile Helen escapes, drives off in her car, then comes back! Why, God only knows, because the movie never offers a clue.
A party, especially one set poolside in Los Angeles, would seem the perfect opportunity for witty, smart banter—see “Shampoo”(1975) or even “Sunset Boulevard” (1959)—but here it turns into a limp, house-party-gone-wrong romp. Rather than dropping bon mots like William Holden or Gloria Swanson, these guests snort coke in their kids’ bedrooms, hate their personal and professional lives, and talk endlessly about how and where they went wrong.
It’s a textbook example of how a bad script can dive-bomb an A-list cast: none of these bold-faced names comes off looking good, except Lois Smith. Blame lies firmly with whatever-were-you-thinking writer-director Conners.
“The Uninvited” is playing exclusively at the IFC in New York. Further evidence that a venue famous for cinematic art has the nerve to show movies without one minute of it.
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