The Other Side: The Invisible Movie

Can a teen thriller about a near-death young man in his desperate struggle to get back to life make an engaging movie? The Invisible proves so.




The Invisible movie was released in 2007, and tells the story of Nick Powell (Justin Chatwin), who is very smart and bookish, a top student. Little by little, the movie shows that his prosperous facade hides a deep loneliness, worsened by his mother’s indifference towards him since his father died.

Nick has a best friend who is very timid, and is often terrorized by a school gang. The gang leader is Annie (Margarita Levieva), who fights Nick in the canteen, after he ridicules her in public for harassing his friend. This event will set in motion all the bizarre incidents to come.

Annie leads a terrible life. Her mother doesn't care about her and her little brother, her house is always a mess, and her father is a former policeman who works as a security guard. In order to cope, she keeps a combative attitude, plays with knifes, listens to blaring Rock, and dates a mechanic, who is also a car robber.

After Annie robs a jewelry store, and is denounced to the police and arrested, she starts suspecting Nick is behind it. Then she goes after Nick to take her revenge, leaving him for dead in the woods, after beating him up with her gang.

Nick's nightmare starts the following day, when he goes to school and nobody sees him. At first, he doesn't know what is happening, but as soon as he finds out, he starts a desperate race against time to find anyone who can help him before he actually dies. In the meantime he finds out the truth about those closest to him, and has his opinions about others constantly challenged.

At the time The Invisible was released, Justin Chatwin talked about the main theme behind the plot. “He gets to see different sides of people, you know. When you think that something is white, then you see that it also got black and grey... There's middle ground. You learn things about people that you didn't know. There's a reason why someone is the way they are.” [1]

The Invisible movie raises interesting questions about consciousness, reality, near-death experiences, and the different ways people deal with challenges in their lives. It has a well-structured story, with interesting plot twists.

Here is a couple of pictures. Watch the trailer below.

More information:

The Invisible IMDB page