The Invisible Guest — keep your story straight

Spoiler-free review.

The Invisible Guest is easy to get pulled into. A businessman accused of murder has limited time to prepare his defence with a lawyer, and the conversation quickly becomes a contest over what happened and what can be made to sound convincing.

Oriol Paulo keeps the information moving without giving the scenes much time to settle. A detail gets questioned, an account gets reconsidered, and suddenly you are weighing something differently. I enjoyed that active feeling of listening rather than simply waiting for the next event.

Mario Casas and Ana Wagener give the central exchanges a useful imbalance. His explanations and her insistence on testing them create tension even when the film is largely dealing in words. The dialogue is doing a lot of plot work, but the pressure between the performers keeps it from feeling like a summary.

It is very constructed, and occasionally I could feel the writing arranging another turn rather than letting a person behave naturally. The characters are not always as interesting as the story they are caught in. Still, the pacing makes it easy to accept the invitation and keep following.

8/10. An entertaining, tightly managed thriller with plenty of twists. The less you know about the details going in, the more fun the questioning will be.

Directed by Oriol Paulo · 2016 · Spanish. Film details · Poster source. Artwork © its respective rights holders.

— Desly