Last week I had the absolute pleasure to pop into Working Title’s London offices to attend the press screening for The Uninvited, a feature film debut of Nadia Conners, which debuted at SXSW festival, and I left deeply moved (read: sobbing) by the poignant story on time and how it shapes our perception.
Inspired by a real anecdote (yet not autobiographical), the film takes place in LA hills, in the lead up to a cocktail party hosted by Rose, a former actor become stay at home mother (Elizabeth Reaser, The Twilight Saga, Handmaid’s Tale) and Sammy, her husband who’s a Hollywood agent (Walton Goggins, The White Lotus, The Hateful Eight) when their party preparations are interrupted by the arrival of Helen (Lois Smith, East of Eden, The French Dispatch), an elderly woman who is lost, but seems to be certain she has arrived home. Unable to ignore disoriented Helen, Rose invites her in to try and help her find her way home.
Outside, the guests start to arrive and as Rose navigates the duties of a mother and a hostess while assisting an elderly guest, secrets are discovered and buried resentments come up to the surface, Helen becoming a catalyst for intimate – and witty – conversations that allow all the characters reflect on their actions from a perspective they never before considered.
Time underpins all the themes, with Rose’s acting past being brought up in the context of a play she once starred in with her former partner Lucian (the ever charming Pedro Pascal, The Last Of Us, Mandalorian), which is being adapted for screen by Gerald, Sammy’s client (Rufus Sewell, The Holiday, The Diplomat) and starring Lucian. Rose’s quip at the beginning of the movie, that perhaps she should have considered plastic surgery, becomes more potent as she finds out that her role from the play will be performed by much younger actress in the movie.
Motherhood is another topic that gets explored from multiple angles as women of different generations talk about their experiences – Rose resenting having to give up her career, yet passionate about being the best mother she can be. Delia, the young actress (Eva De Dominici), explores her mothering instincts while Helen reminisces about her daughter, every corner of Rose’s house bringing up a new memory.
It’s a film that’s wonderfully written, masterfully acted and one that invites reflection on womanhood: the paths we chose, the paths we walk away from, the choices we make and the sacrifices that come with them. Nadia Conners, the director (and Walton Goggin’s real life wife), became a mother at 40 and “felt this internal war, where I wanted to spend as much time as I could with my child, but I also wondered if this version of myself and my career that I had cultivated for 20 years had vanished. Who was this domestic person I had become?” She also adds that
“This is not my marriage. I am not this woman. The character that Walt plays is not what he’s like as my husband. But making this film allowed me to explore certain resentments I had felt as a wife and a mother. It became an expensive sort of therapy.”
Nadia Conners
I felt a particular connection to ‘The Uninvited’ – as a woman who turned 40 a year ago, I have also once been at a receiving end of a conversation about a ‘parallel universe’ with a past love, not too dissimilar to the one Rose has with Lucien. I have also had chapters in my life that I considered closed, like my film critic career, which suddenly got brought back to the surface by an unexpected arrival (in my case – invitation to review this film). I cannot stop thinking about time, especially as me and all my close friends come to terms with mortality of our parents as they encounter new ailments. It’s a very human movie, heartfelt, beautifully observed and intimate, showing the multiple facets of womanhood with great humour and sensitivity. It stayed with me the past week more than I anticipated. A real gem.
- ‘The Uninvited’ comes out in UK cinemas on the 9th May with a live Q&A screening with Rosie Fellner and Ross Clarke at Genesis Cinema in Whitechapel. It will be available on demand from 11th June
- Follow Nadia Conners on Instagram | IMDb | Letterboxd