Susan Granger’s review of “THE INVISIBLE CIRCUS” (Fine Line Features)
A charismatic young actress named Jordana Brewster is the reason to see this otherwise mundane coming-of-age movie. Written and directed by Adam Brooks, working from a novel by Jennifer Egan, it follows the emotional journey of an 18 year-old – that’s Brewster – who lives in San Francisco with her widowed mother (Blythe Danner). “I spend too much time watching TV with my mom and, when I go out, I don’t fit in,” she laments. It’s 1976, so before she goes to college and against her mother’s wishes, she travels to Europe in search of the truth about the mysterious death, six years earlier, of her older sister (Cameron Diaz) whom she idolized. In the course of her travels, she becomes involved with her sister’s ex-boyfriend (Christopher Eccleston) as she discovers – thru flashbacks – how her sibling became a part of a radical political group whose actions spun out of control and into a vortex of violence and betrayal. But therein lies the film’s almost insurmountable problem. It’s structured as a classic mystery wherein the protagonist – Brewster – visits the various places from which her sister had sent postcards and tries to piece together the parts of a psychological puzzle. But, while the beautifully photographed scenery of Paris, Amsterdam and Portugal is stunning, she doesn’t learn much except from the elusive Eccleston, who has the bizarre nickname of Wolf. And the conclusion is definitely anti-climactic, particularly her mother’s pragmatic reaction. It’s curious, too, that only a feeble attempt is made to capture the flavor of the ’60s, the Age of Aquarius, with its attendant drug culture and sexual promiscuity. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Invisible Circus” is a murky 4 except to reveal the tenuous yet tortuous bond between sisters.
