Posted: 10/31/2011

An Invisible Sign

(2010)

by Joe Sanders

Available on Blu-ray and DVD from MPI Home Video November 1

You know all those movie trailers that try to draw in a larger crowd by comparing their movie to others? Like when the ads for Jennifer Lopez’s The Cell came out and the preview said it’s “The Matrix meets Silence of the Lambs” and it wasn’t even close to either of those films except for a couple of loose thematic connections and some cheap special effects? Well, An Invisible Sign is a cross between A Beautiful Mind, Amelie, Proof, Dead Poets Society, and any generic romantic comedy you can think of off the top of your head. And much like The Cell, this film is so much less than the sum of its parts.

The story sees Mona Gray (Jessica Alba; Sin City), a mousy, 30-year-old woman, whose father (John Shea; Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman) suffers from some sort of undisclosed degenerative mental condition. A young Mona (Bailee Madison) makes a deal with the universe to give up everything she loves in exchange for getting her father back. Mona’s superstitious deal with the universe shapes her into an awkward, introverted adult who believes she has to be miserable in order to make her father better. Mona’s life takes on a sort of purpose then when her former principal offers her a job teaching elementary school math.

The problem is this movie has no idea what it wants to be. It’s a chaotic bouquet of ideas; none of which are pursued to fruition. We begin with an interesting story about a girl taking care of her disabled father, then move on to her teaching story arc, and throw in a dysfunctional romantic plot just to round things out (for lack of a better term). The conflicts in each element of the film are forced upon us and nothing is truly resolved. The reason that Mona needs to support herself with the teaching job is that her mother inexplicably and suddenly throws her out of the house. The mother (Sonia Braga) by the way is the most flat, uninteresting character here. Nothing she does comes from a natural, organic, or believable place. Her principle character want is to force the plot forward.

As far as teaching goes, we see Mona flaccidly attempt to corral classes of first, second, and third graders before her fourth grade (probably?) class come in and calmly take their seats while being awestruck by the array of cardboard numbers taped to the walls. We never see her have to win over her younger students, and we don’t see her have to try very hard to get her older students interested in math. So, in terms of a narrative, there’s nothing much offered by these scenes. Instead, her job sets up her relationship with science teacher Ben (Chris Messina; Away We Go) and student Lisa Venus (Sophie Nyweide). Don’t blink, or you’ll miss the subtle character parallels between Lisa and Mona. Kidding; they’re obvious and non-stop.

Chris Messina is the shining ray of hope in this film. Yes, he’s filling the quirky romantic lead we’ve seen in a hundred other romantic comedies, but he has a wonderful charisma serves the film well. Seeing him interact with the students and Mona herself does a lot to carry us through this haphazard endeavor. It’s also worth noting that J.K. Simmons (Thank You For Smoking) is really good in this as Mr. Jones, Mona’s former math teacher. The only thing is that the role is too small to fully explore his character.

People might be drawn to this anticipating a refreshing change from Jessica Alba, whose contributions to the acting world have given us two awful Fantastic Four movies. Unfortunately, the Alba hopeful will find it difficult to be impressed by her performance here. Giving Jessica Alba bangs and pigtails doesn’t make her believably unattractive and it’s clear that she has no idea how to exist as the homely Mona Gray. She seems completely unable to step into this character’s shoes and understand how a person could be like this. This makes it very difficult for her to make realistic choices as this character and makes watching her as uncomfortable as playing her seems to be.

Joe Sanders is a playwright and college instructor in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He has a Master’s degree in playwriting and a Bachelor’s degree in creative writing from Western Michigan University, where he currently teaches Thought and Writing.

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