Invention Review

Invention (2024) Film Review from the 77th Annual Locarno Film Festival, a movie directed by Courtney Stephens, written by Callie Hernandez and Courtney Stephens and starring Callie Hernandez, Lucy Kaminsky, James N. Kienitz Wilkins, Sahm McGlynn, Joe Swanberg, Tony Torn and Caveh Zahedi.

There’s a point where the star of Courtney Stephens’ new film, Invention, is calling an airline and inquiring about a bereavement special. The person on the other end of the phone says she doesn’t qualify for that discount. But, she’s just lost her dad. What does she have to do to qualify for that deal? If nothing else, Stephens’ film is proof that life has a nasty sense of humor that tends to manifest itself to those who happen to be unlucky in life. The star of the movie is Callie Hernandez. She plays a woman named Carrie who has lost her dad. He passed away and leaves behind a legacy of sorts but it’s not money. He’s left debts that maybe his financial situation could pay off but there’s nothing coming Carrie’s way… except for one little peculiar thing.

It seems the dad has left Carrie a patent for a special healing device that never actually took off, so to say. An executor of the father’s will who is well played by James N. Kienitz Wilkinds states that the dad was not playing with a full deck in so many words but there’s the pesky matter of this healing device. A patent gives somebody control over an idea for a certain amount of time in order to do what they can to try to make a “go” of it. The healing device is sort of a MacGuffin but to call it that would lead one to believe that there’s actually a distinct purpose for the device in the plot. There really isn’t. It’s more of a conversation starter for characters in the picture.

Invention intersperses footage of different sorts of things. At one point, it shows headless Elsa, Olaf and Anna characters (from the movie Frozen) where a person who wanted to take a picture with friends would put their heads in these holes and… well, why do people get kicks out of things like that? They just do. Why do people think there’s some meaning to things that there really aren’t? People communicate and do what they can to help and inspire others while some people are just manipulative a–holes. Invention understands these facts. Carrie is sort of manipulated into praying with an overly religious character played by Joe Swanberg. She seeks out people who knew her dad but not much comes of her interaction with them. She still wonders about the backstory of the patent, though.

Unfortunately, there’s not much depth to some parts of this. A shop keeper character played by Sahm McGlynn is funny but also pathetic in a way. A would-be comedian who talks about how long it takes to digest a booger, it’s hard to believe Carrie would give this guy the time of day, let alone laugh so hard at his jokes and it appears she sleeps with him too. But, the movie is still ambitious underneath all its implausibilities and you have to give it credit for what it does right even when it takes a few wrong turns.

Whereas a movie like Invention creates an earnest and believable character like Carrie, you tend to give films like this more credit than you normally would. There are some technical quirks that make their way into this movie which was obviously low-budget to a fault. It’s interesting because by half-way through, you know this film isn’t building up to too much. It’s more of a slice-of-life that sheds light on the things we try to learn about ourselves and our family when a death unexpectedly occurs.

Hernandez is solid. She creates a multi-layered character who tries to make some kind of sense of all the madness and the pieces of her dad’s life. She interacts with his friends, some of whom have more wisdom to share with her than others. While the patent and its future has no real resolve here, the viewer will formulate his or her own opinion as to what may be ahead for the idea or if it will just get squashed at some point.

Since Invention makes some profoundly unique statements about life and death, it gets a marginal pass from me but it’s a close call. The movie is barely over an hour and all the characters don’t necessarily form a cohesive whole. Carrie’s dad looked for the meaning of life through talking a lot, sometimes on television. He had almost nothing to show for it at the end. Whether Carrie can move forward after learning that fact and try to go ahead and make something out of her life is the question that the movie leaves for the viewer. Does the patent mean the glass is half empty or half full? It’s interesting as a film concept and somewhat pretty watchable in a small little movie like this.

Rating: 6.5/10

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