A new film on Netflix called Intrusion. I had heard nothing about it but it appeared in the UK Top 10 so I decided to give it a go and was pleasantly surprised but not for the reasons you may think.
The movie is about a woman, Meera (played by Freida Pinto), who moves to a small town with her husband, Henry (played by Logan Marshall-Green), but is rattled when they are targeted for a home invasion.
Meera and Henry move to a new house, that Henry has designed and built himself. They have a seemingly perfect marriage full of love and understanding. Meera has previously battled cancer and when she has a scare, she goes to check it out with the doctor without telling Henry. When Henry finds out, he is frustrated as they agreed not to hide things for each other.
When they return from a night out, they find that their house has been broken into with a lot of damage, but nothing has been taken. The police get involved but don’t appear to be too concerned. A few nights later, it happens again but this time, Meera and Henry are in the house. Henry helps Meera escape but then he gets dragged back into the house. Meera takes refuge in a car, when one of the intruders emerges without a mask, where she sees he is only a teenage boy… and then Henry shoots him down.
Fast forward to the police giving Meera and Henry a debrief, we find out the people that broke into Meera and Henry’s house where the relatives of a girl who has been missing for a few months (I think). The whole ordeal seems to be over when one night, Henry goes to the store to get something, but Meera sees he lost his wallet so she tries to call him but as the call isn’t going through, she decides to follow him.
As she’s following him in the car, she notices that he’s going the wrong way and in fact has turned toward a hospital. She’s distracted by this and then has a collision so never sees where Henry gets to. Thus begins Meera’s investigation into her husband.
That’s about as many spoilers as I want to give away so lets get in to the review. Firstly, I loved the visuals of this film. Every shot was beautiful to look at and there was a minimalist aesthetic going on. The entire film is from Meera’s perspective to allow us to follow her on her journey.
From the description of the film, you can make a few guesses of who’s the bad guy but, the movie does a great job in hiding clues. There are a few obvious ones such as the pipes clanging (they put A LOT of emphasis on that). It’s well paced in the sense that you build up a picture of Meera’s life and then see it start to unravel, all the while, giving you (the viewer) a chance to figure out what’s going on.
In all honesty, the film was kind of predictable but not in its entirety. The way that Henry is presented to us is as “too good to be true” with a hint of “creepy”. There are parts of his personality that we see that are controlling, such as the way everything in the house has to be in perfect order and pictures on shelves to be positioned a certain way. I think even from the beginning of the film, we see Meera look fearfully, even if for a brief moment, toward Henry.
The acting was good, especially on Meera’s part but the other characters do come across quite fictitious but most likely because they are slightly less developed. The dialogue was natural between most of the characters. The main downside to this film is that it’s not entirely memorable. The ending feels a little weak and part of me did wonder if that’s because they stuck at a “12” age rating. It felt as if a part of it had been censored.
If you are in the mood for watching a thriller on a weeknight, then this is the film for you. It’s not too tense or scary. It’s interesting to see how the story unfolds but it’s not something that’s a must-see.
My Rating - 6/10