The two heroines come across as not very bright women, lacking firm convictions and inflicted with frail identities, as a result of family experiences related to their now-dead father.Įxtensive voice-over narration and intrusive flashback structure make the film even less involving. Motivation for the conduct of both sisters is framed in strictly psychological terms - a recurrent problem of American films dealing with politics. Unintentionally, the film gives a bad name to 1970s countercultural revolutionary movements - Faith is portrayed as a woman attracted to radical causes for personal rather than political reasons. Assuming the shape of a tedious road movie, Invisible Circus jumps around from Amsterdam, where Phoebe gets to experience LSD to Paris, where Phoebe hooks up with Faith's former boyfriend, Wolf (Christopher Eccleston) to Berlin, where she learns of Faith's involvement with several revolutionary groups to the picturesque village in Portugal, where her sister killed herself. What's a bright but aimless girl gonna do' She plunges into her family's painful past, committed to unravel the mystery that surrounds her charismatic sister, Faith (Diaz), who killed herself in Portugal six years earlier.Īgainst her mother's wish, Phoebe hits the road, following Faith's path through Europe in her determination to disclose the truth. She lives with her mother, Gail (Blythe Danner), but something basic is missing from her life: a sense of connectedness to the outside world, a meaningful act that will make her growing pains more tolerable. Set in San Francisco, circa 1977, the first reel centres on Phoebe O'Connor (Jordana Brewster), who has just graduated from high school and is about to begin college in the autumn. A bleak future awaits Fine Line's film, which has been long on the shelf and was a last-moment substitute for The Dangerous Lives Of Altar Boys in the Sundance Premieres section. The film's strongest marketing hook is Cameron Diaz, who plays the role of the older sister, but her performance (which is pallid) is contained within a lame movie, that despite exotic locales, fails to register even as a travelogue. 98mins.Īdam Brooks' The Invisible Circus is a total miss, both as a potentially intriguing look into the tumultuous politics of the 1960s and 1970s, and as a coming of age of a young girl obsessed by the mysterious death of her sister.

The invisible circus by jennifer egan