'Uninvited' RSVP's for Suspense Drama Article by Jennifer Ureste September 14, 2005 harpercollege.edu Ever wonder what happens to someone after they die? The latest movie from the Palatine-based production company, CNGM Pictures NFP, shot entirely in the Chicagoland area, mixes drama with sci-fi suspense as a family grieving the loss of their mother notices the presence of an uninvited entity in their home. "Uninivited", written, directed and edited by Michael P. Noens (whose directing credits include "The Legends of Cuba Road" and "Please Wait to be Seated") is the most complex of their movies to date. The movie does exhibit some technical issues, for example, when someone puts down a glass on the table, the accompanying sound distracts with its loudness in addition to the score occasionally drowning out the dialogue. Ray (Palatine resident John Anthony) loses his wife (Palatine resident Judy Klingner) in a car accident and must raise his family of three teenagers on his own. The film focuses on the early days of the greiving process. Ray grows distant from his children as they struggle to handle the death while he claims to be "just fine." The opening sequence uses hand-held camera technique, which effectively demonstrates the urgency Ray feels as he rushes to the hospital to find his wife and son after the terrible accident. A well-played Alice (Hoffman Estates resident Colleen Longo), the eldest child, attempts to step in for her now absent mother after she sees her father begin to disengage himself from the family. As their breakfasts and dinners grow silent, Ray signs up the family to take to a grief counselor, but he refuses to go with them demonstrating his need to deal with it on his own. Lisa (16-year old Kristin Higgins), the youngest, begins to have encounters with a strange and mysterious visitor, whom she thinks is her dead mother. In her superb performance, she never exhibits fright, only curiousity as she gets drawn closer and closer to the enigmatic figure. She even stays up all night waiting for it to return. Simon (Hoffman Estates resident Mark Iverson), the middle child, carries around a lot of believable emotional baggage from having witnessed his mother dying in his expertly executed performance. He begins having blackouts and goes into trances while saying uncanny things that he can't remember saying, mostly about "killing her". Alice must step into a motherly role to care for her brother and sister, as the father moves farther and farther away from his parental duties. Noens does a great job of showing the solitude of each family member's grief. The family falls apart after the accident. As the Ashby family struggles to get through the pain of loosing their wife and mother, a variety of everyday life issues evolve. It demonstrates how life must go on after death, but also how it can stop when people can't quite move on through their grief. Noens' script and direction shows how grief affects everyone differently. With a running time of 125 minutes, the movie suffers. The score detracts from the movie because, many times, the music does not fit the scene. The lighting in most scenes is excellent, although in one or two scenes, it is either so dark that it obscures the actor's face, or is so bright it's washed out. The camera angels throughout the film add to the complexity of the story. Although the surprise ending came as a shock, it seems some issues went unresolved. << Go Back to Press