As the sun goes down in the Hollywood Hills, talent agent Sammy (Walton Goggins) and his actor wife Rose (Elizabeth Reaser) prepare for a house party they are throwing. It’s pretty quickly apparent that, despite Sammy’s sudden lustful lunges at his wife and her tinkling laughter, there is plenty of backstory to be revealed behind the landscaped garden succulents. Sammy’s career is in trouble and he is worried about retaining his star client, megalomaniac director Gerald (Rufus Sewell). Rose is not getting cast much these days, and while she dotes on their only child Wilder (Roland Rubio), she misses her career. Up-and-coming star Delia (Eva De Dominici) is coming by for the evening, as is big-time movie star Lucien (Pedro Pascal), who just happens to be Rose’s old flame from back in the days when they were struggling theatre actors together.
As an ensemble of extras graze on the finger-food buffet and a “spirit photographer” snaps portraits of people and their supposed auras, Rose deals with a mysterious guest. Elderly Helen (Lois Smith, profoundly touching) has rocked up in the driveway in her Prius and insists this is her house. Rose juggles trying to find someone to collect Helen and getting Wilder to go to sleep while the party rumbles on.
All the talk of Rose and Lucien’s theatrical background unfortunately underscores just how cringingly theatrical some of the dialogue is here, with overdone leitmotifs (including a bedtime story Rose tells Wilder) and often flowery diction. But at moments, writer-director Nadia Conners (who is Goggins’ real-life wife) will turn in a tasty one-liner. She also stipples the texture of these privileged people’s lives with precision, right down to the choice of nibbles and the drape of the cashmere. The performances likewise feel lived-in and effortless, especially Reaser’s, in a role that requires her to be many different conflicted women at once. We’re invited to laugh at the characters gently but The Uninvited never goes for all-out satire and is all the better for it, even if the last act is overly neat.
• The Uninvited is in UK and Irish cinemas from 9 May.
