‘Write what you know’ goes the old adage, and Hollywood scribes have long dipped their sharp quills into the inky working methods and attitudes of their own industry. And it’s not about to stop anytime soon — as Hollywood continues to navigate the seismic changes of #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, streaming platforms, the pandemic and the SAG-AFTRA strike. And just as Seth Rogen’s Apple TV+ series The Studio gears up for its finale, we now have Nadia Conners’ heartfelt comedy-drama The Uninvited landing in cinemas to take its turn peering beyond the veneer.
Conners is married in real life to Walton Goggins, who thanks to the likes of The White Lotus has found himself the man-of-the-moment at 53. She therefore knows of what she speaks when offering this tale of once-celebrated theatre actress Rose (Elizabeth Reaser), now in her forties and unable to catch a gig. While she’s just been dismissed as too old to play the mother of a child who’s the same age as her actual son, her former co-star, Gerald (Rufus Sewell), is hotter than ever, with Rose’s agent husband Sammy (Goggins) throwing a party in his honour. There’s an ulterior motive, naturally — Sammy hopes to coax Gerald into coming with him as he sets up his own talent agency.
Particularly pointed and poignant on how Hollywood treats women at the various stages of their careers...
Originally developed as a play, The Uninvited betrays its origins by offering two or three monologues too many, these moments of exposition feeling too spotlighted even if the uniformly strong cast prove ready for their close-ups. Less stagey is the cinematography of Robert Leitzell, who fluidly tracks the principals throughout the house, into the garden and onto a bedroom balcony to open the action out. The finger buffet is grazed, $200 shots of Bourbon are gulped, lines of coke are snorted, a photographer snaps each guest’s aura, and not one but two uninvited guests crash the soirée: the first, Helen (Lois Smith), a bewildered, nonagenarian one-time actor who thinks this is her home; the second, Lucien (Pedro Pascal), a star who once dated Rose and wants her back.
Particularly pointed and poignant on how Hollywood treats women at the various stages of their careers, the film also dares to chisel into the cracks of Rose and Sammy’s marriage and to speak frankly about the downsides of motherhood. “The person you miss is yourself,” concludes Rose, who offers a detailed, blistering rebuff to an in-demand ingénue (Eva De Dominici) who’s extended a well-meaning supposition on the joys of being a mom. Tinseltown likes to present a surface of glitter but the truth is far more grainy, says Conners. Here, she’s thrown a party where everybody, not just Helen, is lost.