There is a lot of heart in Nadia Conners’ sharp film The Uninvited. She fills her film with intrigue as she points a finger at the position women are still placed within Hollywood.

One night in the Hollywood Hills, Rose (Elizabeth Reaser) and Sammy’s (Walton Goggins) party is interrupted by an unexpected and confused stranger, Helen (Lois Smith). As the pair try to navigate their night and create a new spark in their respective careers, things become increasingly complicated the more the drinks flow.

Rose is trying to do a lot of juggling, prepping for a big party at her home and getting her son fed, bathed, and ready for bed while also trying to get herself ready. So when a stranger in a Prius keeps honking her horn at her gate, she is less than thrilled about another in an endless list of distractions from her career as an actress. Things only get worse when her ex and famous star Lucien (Pedro Pascal) pops by to tell her something important.

Strangely, in a film that has a lot of slow and still moments, The Uninvited is a very busy drama. Tension is rife throughout every scene with every new pairing or grouping of characters that Conners script throws our way. Be it the obvious not-so-under-the-surface boiling contempt Rose and Sammy seem to have for one another or the tension between exes in Rose and Lucien. It’s everywhere, and no matter how much you want to get a breather from it, you can’t; even when we leave the confines of the home and back garden, it’s there on the street.

She shows us the struggles of an actress who waited to have a child and is paying for it by the Hollywood system that seems to think that because she is raising her child, she has taken a step back and practically retired. Pointed lines, such as the phone call at the very beginning of the film, have you wincing in anguish. As the story continues in The Uninvited, the pain for Rose and Helen only increases.

Reaser is great here and her performance as Rose helps carry the film while all the other characters around her fall apart in a variety of ways. You feel for her as she is desperate to become her old self again, forcing herself to smile as people such as rising star Delia glows about her. She loves her son, but goodness, what she would give to be in Delia’s position again.

The wonderful Lois Smith is the awkward spanner in the works as the former resident of Rose and Sammy’s home. Lost and confused, Helen just needs a little bit of care to help her, which Rose is only to gracious to give, seeing herself in the older woman, forgotten and alone. So, while Helen waits for her pick up, she interacts with the ensemble in a thoughtful and light manner that pulls at the heartstrings as and when required.

The Uninvited keeps its story fairly simple and relateable enough for a film about people in Hollywood. While the rest of the cast around Rose, Sammy and Helen could do with a bit more fleshing out and the film given a gentle nudge to speed up in some parts, it ends up being a worthwhile watch that perhaps plays it a touch too safe at the end.

★★★ 1/2

THE UNINVITED is available on VOD from June 11th (theuninvited.movie) https://theuninvited.movie

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