Crappy film

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

In 1969, Faith (Cameron Diaz) went to Europe and disappeared when her sister Phoebe (Camilla Belle) was 12. In 1976 San Francisco, Phoebe (Jordana Brewster) is haunted by Faith's suicide but still looking for her. Her father died of leukemia and hated his work. She fights with her mother (Blythe Danner) and travels to Europe following her sister's old postcards. In Paris, she reconnects with Wolf (Christopher Eccleston) who had traveled to Europe with Faith. Eventually, he tells her that Faith had joined the Red Army group.It's a slow moving coming-of-age movie. Brewster is beautiful but somewhat empty. Diaz is a bouncing floaty flower child and an unconvincing anarchist. The start teases something more than what is actually delivered. Phoebe is not compelling enough and her journey is less exciting than 'National Lampoon European Vacation'. The idea of discovering Faith's journey keeps my interest but the final reveal is rather disappointing.

THE INVISIBLE CIRCUS is not a bad film, and it is certainly worth a look, however, by and large, it fails to connect. The film is, ‎'Convincing', if you focus on the storyline about the younger sister traveling to Europe to uncover the mystery surrounding the death of her big sister, yet overwhelmingly, 'Unconvincing', if you focus on the dead sister's reasons for her radical agenda. There did not seem to be enough character development to believe that this poised and intelligent young woman would mutate from an adventurous hippie into a member of a radical gang. Free Spirits don't generally mutate into Terrorists without just cause, and, in this case, none were offered.

In the early 1960's, two sisters are growing up. Faith is the elder of the two and is the apple of her father's eye – listening to all his talk of art and freedom, while younger Phoebe is given less attention. When their father dies, Faith takes it the hardest – near comatose at first but then getting into any revolution or cause that the period allows her to support. Heading off to Europe with her boyfriend, it is only a few months before her death brings even more pain to the family. Older now, Phoebe decides to use her sister's daily postcards as a guide and follow her footsteps around Europe to try and work out what happened to her.With a quite famous cast, I decided to give this film a look but found that despite the professional sheen on it, this isn't that good a film. The plot is too unlikely, unconvincing and delivered in a phased manner that doesn't really work. Phoebe's journey is pretty unnecessary and her reasons for it didn't make a great deal of sense; it relied too much on some form of mysticism that it never earned (or kept consistent). The truth behind Faith's death unfolds but it does it in a lazy way – Wolf just keeps revealing a bit more every here and there, why he suddenly feels he has to tell things that he had secret two minutes ago is not clear but the film uses it to keep things moving. Meanwhile, in flashback, Faith's story is unconvincing – she is naïve, stupid and her political journey comes across as nothing more than the rebellion of any teenager.It didn't help to have Diaz playing the role because she can't go beyond the character's surface and just ends up with a very basic performance that never got close to the sort of emotional turmoil that would have been needed to make a convincing Faith. Brewster is much better although it would have been a nice touch to cast two actresses that look like they could have at least come from the same family. Brewster has plenty of clunky lines to deliver but does reasonably well and she is allowed to nail Faith's character bang on the money at the end. She also has a good chemistry with Eccleston, which helps to cover up for the fact that the romance between them is a bad idea that didn't work that well. He is interesting enough though and shows he is a good actor by making more of the material than was on the page. The direction makes the most of nice European locations but it totally fails to capture a sense of time – apart from some haircuts and costumes there is very little to tell you when the film is happening and, even if you know, it never feels like the period it wants to be of.Overall it feels interesting enough and has emotional moments and nice touches in it but generally it doesn't work because the writing is poor and cannot make the story work; like another reviewer has said, it comes across rather contrived. The performances from Brewster and Eccleston are both better than the material but Diaz is too weak considering the weight she is asked to carry.

i must say that this movie had a great cast, locations, music and camera work. Cameron Diaz was great, she had a very exciting roll, very uproarish, while Jordana Brewster had a serious roll yet still capturing one. for me Jordana's very nostalgic, she reminds of a female classmate of mine! what realy got me in this movie were the very skillfully planned camera work and the choosing of the locations. the story is very talently written. it is a must see one. the one's who are into mystery movies should watch this one, i guarantee you all that it'll keep you in your seats till the end.