Evie is in trouble. Accustomed to living a quiet, working class life in New York, she reluctantly makes a fateful decision, one that proves she’s not as street smart as she thinks she is.
As played by the absolutely stunning Nathalie Emmanuel, she shouldn’t be this stupid. In fact, she should’ve listened to her only friend Grace (Courtney Taylor). Don’t trust whitey, especially if he has a British accent.
In an early scene of The Invitation, Evie and Grace are servers for a catered swankfest honouring the 10th anniversary of a website dedicated to allowing people to connect with their past. You mail in a DNA sample and if there’s a hit, you’ll get an email connecting you to a long lost relative.
Lonely and hanging on to a supportive, one-year-old voicemail from her deceased mother (fuck cancer), she visits the website, hesitates, then follows the steps. With no father to echo Grace’s advice, either (he died when she was a young teen), standing at the mailbox with said package in hand, she hesitates once more, then goes for it.
She should’ve trusted her doubts. Shortly thereafter, Evie gets the expected email. Turns out she has family in Britain, a very rich family connected to three other rich families. If she thinks it’s all too good to be true, that feeling temporarily goes away upon meeting her overly enthusiastic cousin Oliver (Hugh Skinner) and then seemingly for good upon meeting Mr. De Ville (Thomas Doherty from the Gossip Girl reboot). I mean did she not see 101 Dalmatians?
Walt De Ville looks uncannily like a young Sean Connery but without the requisite wit and charm. (You know he’s full of shit right from the get-go.) Nonetheless, because she’s scripted to, Evie is immediately taken with him especially after he apologizes for the rudeness of his fussy, old butler (Sean Pertwee) who has a strange propensity for chanting in Latin.
Evie arrives here at his own personal Downton Abbey (it’s a lot smaller than the real one, though) because Oliver invited her to a family wedding. Everyone is a little too excited to meet her and she is overwhelmed.
The only one who isn’t is the striking vamp Viktoria (Mr. Robot’s curvaceous Stephanie Corneliussen who can skinny dip any time she likes, I’m fine with it) who goes out of her way to cut her down, mocking her “humdrum” life in New York and repeatedly scolding her more cheerful colleague Lucy (impossibly cute Alana Boden) for being far more friendly and supportive of their guest. And what’s with Vik’s Hungarian accent? Seems suspicious, dawg.
A little taken aback by her substantially upgraded accommodations and the loyal yet cranky service at her beck and call, Evie frequently checks in with a now less skeptical Grace on FaceTime marveling at her supposed good fortune. But of course the audience is way ahead of our hero. Too far ahead, if you ask me.
When the butler starts sacrificing maids and no one asks why they’re not working anymore, when she has bad nightmares about her dead grandmother and doesn’t tell anyone including Grace, and when it turns out some unexplained entity is haunting her at night and then inexplicably disappears upon the convenient timing of Walt showing up, why does it take her a full hour of the running time to finally decide maybe it’s time to leave?
But Mr. De Ville knows how to keep her in line, soothing her and even getting some impromptu make-up sex. (You can’t miss out on the make-up sex.) And in a very dumb moment shortly thereafter, she falls for his suggestion of a double wedding. Evie thinks he’s kidding. He’s not. Our lovely hero is so daft it takes her even longer to realize she’s been swindled. I mean when the bride and groom she was expecting are nowhere to be found and James Bond the bloodsucker starts throwing out a random proposal in the afterglow of your orgasm, wake up, bitch!
When she first enters the estate, the crabby butler tells her she’s free to roam but not in the library which means at some point, she’ll find a way in and snoop around. That’s when she realizes it’s true. Old guys still like Facebook. And she shouldn’t have given in so easily.
The Invitation was primarily made by women and you would hope, knowing what not to do based on the many previous failures of male filmmakers, they would offer something a lot more substantial and surprising than this. A different perspective would be welcome. But instead, we basically get Downton Abbey meets Dracula. Well-dressed Europeans (including the British Emmanuel herself employing an American accent), doing predictably villainous things that aren’t always shown or even seen clearly. We learn that the vampires don’t have to sleep in coffins during the day. They just can’t be evil until the sun goes down. So why the need for candles in dank places, goddamn it? Yeah, I know. So they can attack the maids. But as it turns out, this is clearly unnecessary.
Director Jessica M. Thompson loves the Bram Stoker novel a little too much. The movie is peppered with references from it. I mean the butler’s name is Renfield, for Christ’s sake. And Walt has wine from 1897 in his cellar. That’s the year the book was first published.
Other character names like Lucy and the Harkers and direct plot details usually omitted from actual Dracula adaptations are directly lifted in place of something fresh and exciting. There’s way too much straight drama and not nearly enough terror. And when there is, there’s too many false alarms and jump scares. There’s nothing you haven’t seen here before that wasn’t executed more effectively in better movies.
Like the recent Black Christmas re-do (only slightly better than the first remake), The Invitation wants to make political statements but thankfully is less sanctimonious in its delivery. If only it had more emotional heft to land its punches far more pointedly and consistently.
While counting their tips at that website’s anniversary party, Evie and Grace recoil at all the sexual harassment they faced that night which their boss overhears. He pretty much reminds them that they can be replaced at any time, regardless. That’s a good moment, actually. Feels true, very relatable to any woman who has been there.
Less believable is how easy it is for our hero to escape her ordeal in De Ville’s castle, even though it takes two tries. (Should’ve kept running the first time, honey.) When she finally learns the truth about why she’s been summoned here, she remembers several important details at just the right time. The no-nonsense Scottish woman overseeing her needs and cleaning up the mess in her room, and feeling immense guilt for not helping the others, gives her the straight dope on how to win. So why doesn’t she take her own advice?
Furthermore, you would think the vampires would not leave open such a glaring loophole. Again I say, enter the 21st Century. Stop using candles! Walt is way too comfortable and patient altogether. Either get this shit taken care of on the first day (not the third) or find someone less difficult already. You know, Grace is available.
Evie shows sympathy for the mostly doomed waitstaff which might explain the Scottish lady’s belated face turn. But she’s far too taken with the insincere Mr. De Ville who frankly is no catch. Even his smile is phony. I mean do you really think he gives a fuck about your sculpting, lady? When he tries to downplay his privilege in bed, Evie calls him on it. But then after he declares his own loneliness and desperate yearning to find a life partner, especially one who isn’t just an opportunist, the rat keeps eating the cheese.
Having mostly been a drab, dimly lit costume drama for much of its running time, The Invitation suddenly turns into an action movie as Evie uses Walt’s lure for eternal youth and power against him, far too easily and absurdly, without any personal consequences whatsover. (So you take a bite, win the day and then go back to normal as if nothing happened? Come on.) Even a now conflicted Lucy reaches her breaking point but with less happy results.
Director Thompson has said she wanted to make a feminist statement about archaic traditions that harm women through a very loose retelling of Dracula. The vampires representing the dreaded patriarchy where women are expected to be subservient and forever obedient (even though Viktoria seems a strong candidate for pulling off a potential coup) while Evie is the dense bull in the china shop eventually waking up to her newfound but shortlived capabilities, finally equipped to literally burn it all down.
The problem is from the opening scene where her predecessor causes problems for the four families, we’re not invested. I was never convinced of the threat Walt and his clan represents. He’s too arrogant to recognize Evie is her own person. As a Black lady thrown into Edith Wharton country, you can’t escape the uncomfortable parallels with a certain real-life Royal family member who’s run into similar roadblocks. The differences between the two glaringly obvious, though.
The Invitation is certainly better than most horror films you’ll see despite its disappointing averageness but there’s a moment where you realize it’s not sharp, that it is not as accurately cynical as it needs to be to succeed.
There’s a brief early scene where Grace, who is also Black, talks about how modern British people, especially Evie’s new family, are overly polite because they feel guilty about colonialism, the usurping and outright thievery of African communities and their lands over the course of many centuries.
Has she not heard of The Windsors?
Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Wednesday, April 5, 2023
2:08 a.m.
THE WRITINGS OF DENNIS EARL 