She Likes to Watch

In the midst of a subtle, mysterious epidemic, a psychiatrist mother (Nicole Kidman) struggles for her son’s and her own safety in her once-normal city in “The Invasion,” directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel.

At the start of the film, I noticed the obvious details of a large city on a typical day — the loud music booming from SUV’s; homeless people fraught and begging for money; and men and women dressed in business attire, speaking frantically on cell phones. But when the strange and rather absurd epidemic hits the town, the psychiatrist is confronted with what seem to be people from Mars crowding the sidewalks. At first, this is befuddling to the viewer, as the busy bodies of a mainstream city turn into the flipside — an inanimate, alienated group.

And then, seeing the strength of an able-bodied mom fighting through the invasion to keep her son safe is amazing. Rampage and separation steer them from hope at times, but their devotion to one another doesn’t cease. The action scenes rival anything from typical bad guy vs. good guy movies.

Kidman’s role in the film is a vigorous one, and I thought she alone made the movie work. With Daniel Craig (star of the recent James Bond film “Casino Royale”) by her side, the couple merits plenty of credit for decent acting.

As a remake of the original “The Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” “The Invasion” makes the audience think of other current, universal conflicts as well. The matter of world peace and war are the stuff of today’s politics and hot debates. Though I won’t give away any important details, I will say that if these topics are of interest to you, that’s one more reason to see “The Invasion.” As a peace activist, this film made me reflect on these issues with a somewhat different perspective than I had before.

You may be asking, “What the heck do zombie-like people have to do with things as different as peace and war?” Well, I’m going to have to leave that up to you to find out from “The Invasion.”

— Anya Rossa-Quade

Anya Rossa-Quade, a junior at Arroyo Grande High School, loves to write and watch films with her friends.