The Uninvited
The Uninvited is a filmed on Bowen Island remake of the spooky 2003 South Korean film A Tale of Two Sisters. That would normally be enough to make me wish that I was uninvited to the premiere screening but when you toss in an Oscar nominated acting craftsman like David Strathairn and red hot Elizabeth Banks whose performances get stronger every time out we get a passable melodrama. They play Steven and Rachel a spring-going-on-summer/ fall-going-on-winter couple shacked up in a comfortable but secluded waterfront property complete with a rebuilt boathouse. He’s a successful author and she’s the former nurse for his ailing wife who died in a mysterious boathouse inferno and when she was alive she and Steven had two daughters, Anna and Alex. Anna (Australia’s Emily Browning) was left mentally unstable by this tragedy and has spent a lengthy time under psychiatric care. We catch up with everyone as Anna is finally released to a joyous reunion with Alex (Arielle Kebbel who gets all the best lines) but a chilly reuniting with Dad’s trophy nurse. Anna’s vivid and foreshadowing nightmares and hallucinations lead the sisters to believe that Rachel murdered their mother and they set out to destroy her. Rachel on the other hand seems to have her own sinister agenda. The comparison might be uninvited but The Uninvited tries building to a Sixth Sense climactic aha moment – and almost succeeds.