The film is Pedro Pascal’s first after The Last of Us season two.
Thanks to The Last of Us and The White Lotus, Pedro Pascal and Walton Goggins are both the preeminent Hollywood men of the moment. So, it’s fascinating to see them share the screen in the new satirical comedy-drama The Uninvited, which lands in Irish cinemas next week.
The dramatic feature debut of writer-director Nadia Conners, the wife of Goggins, the film is loosely based on something that happened to them in real life.
The story revolves around a married couple living in the Hollywood hills. They are Rose (the always excellent Elizabeth Reaser, finally given a great showcase), an acclaimed theatre actress turned reluctant stay-at-home mom, and Sammy (Goggins), a fast-talking tough Hollywood agent described as an “assassin” in the field.
Sammy is throwing a party at their house, which many successful actors and filmmakers are due to attend – some of whom (including characters played by Pascal and Rufus Sewell) Rose knows from her theatre days.
Just as the soirée is due to kick off, a confused and disoriented elderly woman named Helen (Lois Smith) shows up on Rose and Sammy’s doorstep, insisting their home belongs to her.
While Sammy is too focused on schmoozing his guests, Rose takes in Helen. As Rose attempts to get this surprise arrival to her actual home safely, and as she reconnects with these figures from her theatre past, the homemaker’s resentments about the way her life has turned out rise to the fore.
All taking place over one night, this one-location indie starts a little rickety with its bouncy, twinkling score – which suggests a light comedy is in store – clashing discordantly against Connors’ wordy, often cutting dialogue.
One particularly memorable early interaction between Sammy and Rose sees the husband describing how he’d like to take up weaving as a hobby because he has a “deep desire” to do something with his hands.
Without missing a beat, Rose casually replies: “Maybe you should just wring my neck and put me out of my misery.”
Perhaps this jarring quality is intentional because as the film continues, that darkness rises more prominently to the surface – with The Uninvited finding a confident footing in the process.
It turns out Sammy has ulterior motives for throwing the party and, against the idyllic backdrop of the Hollywood hills, a series of increasingly messy revelations play out involving career crises, affairs, unplanned pregnancies and sobriety lapses.
Even though the characters in The Uninvited, aside from Rose, aren’t the most pleasant, all of these reveals and betrayals feel emotionally affecting and believable in the hands of such a qualified cast.
Pascal is magnetic yet haunted, while Goggins finds sadness and sympathy under thick layers of slime. But the real stand-out is Reaser, who manages to convey Rose’s decades of complex history over the course of a 97-minute runtime, all taking place over one evening.
The Uninvited, with its cast of big names all gathering in one house to make something smaller and more raw, evokes memories of the golden age in the ’90s of American indies. If you’re a fan of the early work of Hal Hartley, Noah Baumbach, Richard Linklater or Whit Stillman, The Uninvited is worth seeking out.
