Written and directed by Leigh Whannell, The Invisible Man is a rock-solid thriller, but
some of its mysteries are never fully resolved.
However, we'll be breaking down all of the questions that the film never gave us answers
to, to see if we can answer them ourselves.
Pretty much every scene in The Invisible Man is about Cecilia struggling, literally or
metaphorically, with Adrian's lingering presence in her life.
The film's singular focus on this one plotline is generally a good thing, since it offers
the audience no escape from the constantly escalating tension.
But unfortunately, it also means that there's basically no room in the film for subplots,
so we don't get a chance to learn much about who Cecilia is as a person, outside of her
relationship with Adrian.
In the brief moments where Cecilia is momentarily free of Adrian's grasp, we catch glimpses
of a truly compelling character who we want to learn more about.
When she, James, and Sydney are just hanging out together, Cecilia is sharp, funny, and
empathetic.
Also, in one scene, Cecilia is suddenly being interviewed for a job at an architecture firm,
the only acknowledgement we get of Cecilia having career aspirations.
Was she an architect before?
Did she give it up for Adrian?
One reason why Cecilia sometimes feels like such a cipher is because even she herself
might not even know who she is anymore.
Trauma can make you feel like whoever you once were, that person has now been erased.
You have no life outside your struggle for survival.
Who was Cecilia before she met Adrian?
The film doesn't answer, and we'd really like to know, but perhaps Cecilia is currently
in a place where not even she remembers.
From the moment Emily rescues Cecilia from Adrian's house, something seems off about
their interactions.
Emily is never seen comforting her sister, most of their conversations quickly turn to
bickering, and most tragically of all, when strange things start happening to Cecilia,
Emily doesn't take her sister's concerns seriously.
One possible interpretation of their dynamic is that it's solely a necessary plot device
in order for the horror of the film to function.
As is the case with many horror stories, the scares can only continue if no one listens
to the protagonist.
But there's also a more charitable reading of their dynamic.
Long before Cecilia escaped from Adrian, she and Emily were already estranged.
Think about it, the way that Cecilia's stalker drives a wedge between her and Emily is by
sending a single fake email, telling Emily that Cecilia wishes she was dead.
What happens next?
Emily immediately cuts Cecilia out of her life.
Cecilia denies that she sent the email, but Emily refuses to listen.
If that email was a wildly out of character thing for Cecilia to say, you'd think that
Emily would consider the possibility that she didn't have the full picture, and she'd
listen to Cecilia's explanation.
Emily's reaction only makes sense if there was already some underlying tension between
the sisters that Cecilia's tormentor was exploiting.
We never get the full story about the reason for this tension, but some old wound is undeniably
there.
After Cecilia is arrested for her sister's murder, a nurse meets with her and tells her
that, according to a blood test, Cecilia is pregnant.
The nurse says,
"The test shows us that it was pretty recent.
We can't be sure of exactly when, but it must have been some time in the last month."
So now comes an unpleasant question...when and how did Cecilia get pregnant?
At this point, we don't know exactly how long it's been since Cecilia escaped from Adrian.
Two weeks passed between when she first left and when she heard of his apparent suicide.
Since then, we're guessing that at least a few more weeks have probably elapsed, if not
significantly longer, perhaps even a couple months.
It's possible, though a bit of a stretch, that Adrian got Cecilia pregnant while they
were still living together, but it's also possible that, and here's where things get
real uncomfortable, he did so after she'd already left.
We don't want to think about the mechanics of how exactly that would work, but given
what we know about Adrian, both in terms of his immorality and his resourcefulness, it's
not out of the question.
One other lingering question that the film doesn't answer is what's going to happen to
Cecilia's unwanted pregnancy?
We can understand why the film didn't go there, but whether or not Cecilia plans on keeping
it is perhaps one of the biggest questions that the film chooses to leave unanswered.
When Cecilia finally shoots the invisible assailant in James' house and peels the suit
off him, she's surprised to find not Adrian inside but rather his simpering toad of a
brother, Tom.
There are a few different ways to interpret this reveal.
One is that Tom really was the one tormenting Cecilia all this time, and Adrian never got
his hands dirty personally.
Another interpretation is that this is the only time Tom wears the suit, perhaps because
Adrian is attempting to frame him, but at all other points, Adrian is the only one abusing
her.
Either of these explanations are potentially defensible, but there's another interesting
option.
It's also possible that, during the final invasion of James' house (and perhaps earlier),
there are two invisible men, Tom and Adrian, working together simultaneously.
After all, when Sydney finally confronts the invisible man in her room by macing him, he
collapses to the ground, but then, a moment later, when Sydney runs out into the hallway,
she's immediately knocked over.
It's possible that it's the same guy, but the logistics of the scene make way more sense
if there was actually a second invisible man waiting in the hallway.
We know that Adrian has access to multiple suits.
And don't forget, when Adrian is discovered by police the next day, his eyes look awfully
red.
Perhaps like someone who was recently maced?
Throughout much of the film, Adrian and his brother, Tom, appear to be in a more or less
equal partnership, a unified front of awfulness.
But occasionally, we get hints that their relationship might be a lot more complicated.
At one point, Tom asserts that Adrian held all the power in their relationship, saying,
"My brother controlled me long before he met you, Cecilia."
Later, after Tom is killed, Adrian claims that the complete opposite is true, saying,
"I know it didn't seem like it to the outside world, but Tom controlled me."
If both brothers claim that they were the abused and powerless party in a toxic relationship,
who should we believe?
We feel the evidence points towards Tom being subservient to Adrian and not the other way
around.
When Tom visits Cecilia in the psych ward, he tells her that they can get her out of
jail if she agrees to return to her life with Adrian.
This ultimatum doesn't really make sense if Tom has the power and Adrian is just a puppet.
That being said, it's also potentially true that both brothers are telling the truth,
at least in part.
Maybe they each abused one another at various times.
Or perhaps both are lying, and their claims of abuse exist solely to manipulate Cecilia's
emotions.
Regardless, none of this justifies the way that either of them behaves, so it also seems
safe to just label them both as irredeemable jerks and move on with our lives.
Since there's still arguably a bit of ambiguity at the end of the film regarding just how
bad of a guy Adrian is, is Cecilia's decision to murder him truly justifiable?
During Adrian and Cecilia's final dinner conversation, Cecilia is wearing a wire to record their
conversation.
Presumably, she's doing this to attempt to trick Adrian into confessing his crimes on
tape, so that she can send him to jail.
Adrian, however, is evasive, and he starts trying to seduce and gaslight Cecilia all
over again.
This culminates with him using the phrase,
"That shouldn't come as a surprise."
As Adrian says these words, a twinge of realization flashes across Cecilia's face, presumably
because this has just confirmed two things for her.
The first comes from how he says that word, "surprise," in his deep, raspy voice.
That same word was used mockingly by Cecilia's invisible stalker as he was tormenting her,
and hearing that word again in Adrian's voice presumably confirms for her that they are
the same person.
We can also assume that this confirms for Cecilia that Adrian is still willing to lie
to her, willing to start up the cycle of abuse all over again.
Adrian truly has no remorse, no conscience, and he's never going to stop.
That was enough for Cecilia to conclude that Adrian needed to die.
Does that make what she did right?
In the end, Cecilia decides to kill Adrian by putting on an invisibility suit and forcing
him to cut his own throat with a knife, in full view of the house's security cameras,
so that he appears to be committing suicide.
It's a shocking and gut-wrenching moment, but it also has the potential to be somewhat
confusing.
After all, the exact logistics of how Cecilia accomplished this plan aren't ever fully explained.
When and how exactly did she get her hands on an invisibility suit of her own?
One option is that Cecilia is wearing Tom's suit from when he attacked James' house.
However, this seems unlikely for two reasons.
First, the suit was clearly damaged after Cecilia shot it to pieces.
The second problem is that Tom's suit was presumably turned over to the police as evidence.
What seems to be a far more likely option is that Cecilia's suit is actually the one
that she discovered earlier in the basement when she crept back into Adrian's house halfway
through the film.
In this scene, she peels it off a mannequin, presumably to steal it, but when she hears
someone entering the house, Cecilia appears to stash the suit away in an air vent inside
Adrian's closet.
Later, when Cecilia claims that she's going to the bathroom during her dinner with Adrian,
she's most likely retrieving the suit from the closet and using it to execute her master
plan.
After Cecilia's final confrontation with Adrian, the film ends rather abruptly.
Even though, in this moment, Cecilia seems to have found some measure of closure, we
still have endless questions about what comes next for her.
First, is Cecilia going to jail for any of the stuff she's done?
She may not have actually committed her sister's murder, but she did break out of a mental
hospital, and she did kill both Tom and Adrian.
However, we think she's going to be just fine.
Numerous people "saw" an invisible suspect menacing Cecilia in the hospital, which means
shooting Tom was legitimately self-defense.
Plus, her plan for eliminating Adrian was rock solid.
And if things go bad, Cecilia also just inherited $5 million, so she can probably afford some
pretty good lawyers.
One of the reasons that The Invisible Man has been so critically well-received is because
it succeeds on numerous different levels simultaneously.
It's not just a vehicle for scares.
It's also a film with a brain, full of deeper themes about trauma and abuse.
But what exactly is it trying to say about these subjects?
First, in regards to trauma, the film shows us that even when the source of your pain
is gone, trauma stays with you like an invisible monster.
We see that this is the case for Cecilia even before the invisible man comes back into her
new life.
She's afraid to leave the house, she has trouble sleeping, and she jumps at shadows.
Metaphorically, Cecilia's tormentor is a personification of trauma, an invisible force that stands
at the foot of her bed at night, follows her down the street, and pulls her away from her
friends and family.
And second, in regards to abuse, The Invisible Man shows us that when people come forward
and claim that they're being abused, we tend not to believe them.
We downplay their stories, invalidate their feelings, and call them "crazy."
Pretty much everyone in the film does this to Cecilia at some point, even her sister
and her friend.
This film is a reminder that just because we can't see the people around us being abused,
that doesn't mean it isn't happening.
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Looper videos about horror movies are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.