Headscratchers / The Invisible Man (2020)

The ending

Cecilia's revenge

• While cathartic given how much of a sociopath Adrian was, how did Cecilia figure out how his invisibility suit worked? Nevertheless, how could she wear it? Did Adrian apparently make a suit in her size?
• Also, how is she able to change in and out the suit so quickly without her hair being rumpled, etc?
  • Considering that the suit turns you invisible, you might not necessarily need one to fit you perfectly, as long as it’s functional. Wearing a suit too large for you would probably be uncomfortable, but still work how the suit regularly does, considering that Adrian shows virtually no issues with movement or agility.

The suit's designs

Does the suit also give the wearer super strength?

• Adrian(?) is able to throw Cecilia across the room a few times. Not only is he capable of grabbing a person with one hand and lifting her off the ground, but he single-handedly took on cops and security guards. Even it was his brother instead, they're both of average build. We're not talking mid-1970s Arnold Schwarzenegger or Lou Ferrigno here.
  • Most likely it gives the wearer super strength. Cecilia was able to force Adrian into slashing his own throat at the end of the movie while wearing the suit.
  • Adrian's probably just naturally strong. He cracked Emily's car window with only one bare fist.
  • Plus, it took five shots to take down Tom. It seems that the suit both allows for super strength and durability.
  • It may not grant super strength per se, but perhaps lets one apply strength more efficiently. Despite being flexible enough to move effortlessly, the surface of the suit appears pretty tough, so one could theoretically hit harder without damaging their own fleshy bits, since the suit is absorbing that impact. That doesn't excuse lifting a person in the air with one hand, but Adrian did punch through a car window in the beginning without the suit, which requires a lot of strength, so it can be surmised that Adrian and Tom are quite fit for their size.

Three suits?

• Saw the film, loved it, but I am wondering if there were actually three suits in the film. It is mentioned somewhere that a clue it is Tom in the suit is because the suit doesn't glitch when he attacks James and Sydney, and that it would not be possible for someone to get from the house to Adrian's house. So, was there a suit for Adrian, one for Tom, and the one Cecilia takes was a prototype that he kept on display?
  • Most likely, one of them was either a prototype or spare he could tinker with without worry about what happened to it while the other two were finished products.
  • I got the impression that both brothers were at the house when Sydney was attacked. She maced an attacker, who screamed and flailed, in her bedroom and ran out only to stop as if she hit a wall in the hallway. I might be wrong but I thought that was the first obvious indication that there were two attackers. Regardless, there had to be three suits - both brothers had one and one was hidden in the closet.
  • When Cecilia is in the lab at the beginning, there are four mannequins visible in the background. So there could be at least four suits.

Not making the suits indestructible

• Adrian is a brilliant and wealthy man, so why didn't he make his suits indestructible? A pen can penetrate his suit. Surely he knew people will try to shoot at him. He would have won had he made himself and his brother invincible.
  • Nothing is indestructible with enough force. He likely thought that invisibility would be enough of an advantage.
  • The suits are covered in cameras and still has to be flexible enough to not only conform to a human body but still allow full range of movement. Even bulletproof vests restrict movement, a full suit (which wouldn't protect against knives or higher caliber guns) would be near impossible to move in. If Adrian ever intended to market the suit, it'd be used for intelligence gathering, not for combat.
  • The suits, while not indestructible, are still pretty damn tough; it takes five shots to the chest to kill Tom, and Adrian doesn’t seem to take much damage from his fight with Cecilia.
  • Also, how do you make it indrestuctible? It's not just like you can tag it as indestructible, you have to, well, actually make it difficult to break somehow. Unless it's somewhere mentioned that the builder sacrificed durability for some purpose, when it comes to purely sci-fi suits like this one it can be safely assumed the one made is the best possible one.

Others

Sydney getting attacked

• Why did Sydney think Cecilia had attacked her? Cecilia was sitting on the other side of the room, and Sydney was looking straight at Cecilia when she is suddenly struck by Adrian (or Tom). The only way Cecilia could have been the one who assaulted Sydney is if she was The Flash!
  • Memory can get foggy after a traumatic incident, causing people to believe what they want to believe. Even if it was not logically possible, Cecilia was still the only other one in the room as far as they knew.
  • looking at the scene again, Sydney isn’t looking exactly at Cecilia, and is looking at the ground the split second before getting hit. It’s possible that she didn’t actually see Cecilia do it, but naturally assumed she did since the slap came from Cecilia’s general direction.
  • Cecilia isn't that far, and Cecilia immediately comes close to help, so she sees it close to her. Also, while there is a miscomunication, it must be remembered that Sydney is still young and that Adrian's action already made her pretty jumpy, so her distress is understandable.
  • Sydney was also leaning forwards as she was standing up, as most people do when rising from a chair. While the distances are still debatable, she was clearly closer to Cecilia than she was a second ago
• James and Sydney both think Cecilia attacked her, so they leave the house. But it was James' house. Why would they hurriedly leave their own home, rather than just ordering her to leave? Remember that this was after she'd been awarded a substantial monthly income from her husband's trust, so it's not like she'd have no place to go. She could stay in the finest hotel in the Los Angeles area every day for a month and still have money left over.
  • While James never says where he and Sydney are going, my guess is James was rushing his daughter to a hospital to check for any cranial injuries.
  • There are also several reasons: Cecilia was visibly altered (with good reason, of course), James couldn't be sure she would have just left the house if asked, and Jack clearely states his priority is Sydney's safety, so he was looking for the most peaceful resolution. And while he puts his daughter first, he still cares about Cecilia, and might not believe her to be safe if she left in that state. He also isn't leaving forever, only until the situation de-escalates, he would have still asked Cecilia to leave when everyone was calmer (and, likely, Sydney wasn't around).
  • The dialogue spells it out. Sydney says "I don't want to stay here," so James begins to take her out of the house, then Cecelia tries to explain, but James says his priority is making sure his daughter is safe, and basically tells Cecelia "Don't be here when I get back," though he mentions Cecelia's sister, thinking she still has a place to go. Despite it being her own home, Sydney wanting to leave after being attacked by a close friend is understandable, and while we don't know where James was taking her (hospital or police station seem likely), he obeys her wish to leave, while also telling Cecelia that whatever happened, while they might be able to figure it out later, for right now, she needs to leave.

Wouldn't the public catch wind of The Invisible Man?

• Some of the victims are still alive. The authorities have one of the suits. Wouldn't people eventually figure out that Adrian's death wasn't a suicide?
  • As far as the police know, there was only one suit (in their posession), the man who used it is dead, and the only people who know otherwise are either dead or not saying anything.
  • Related to the above, Adrian was the one who created the suits. Even if he could pass as his brother's victim for being kidnapped, he could not pretend it was Tom who built the suits. He likely lied about the number of suits as part of his lie, and in doing so unwillingly helped Cecilia in planning his murder.

Once you have your ex-girlfriend back, then what?

• Let's say in order to protect James and Sydney, Cecilia agrees to go back home with Adrian, there are a few problems with this:

1. They think Cecilia killed her sister. If Adrian breaks her out of the hospital, they can't go back to his home. The place will be swarming with cops.

2. The public thinks Adrian is dead. He and his brother could face prison time if the public finds out he is alive and well.

• Adrian is also incredibly wealthy and probably has a ton of people in high places who would be willing to let things slide if they were given some money as incentive. Even when people thinks he’s dead, his money is still his in the sense that his shady brother is managing it all. After all, he would need it to have the materials to make the suits in the first place. Theoretically, he could use his money to disappear Cecilia and himself to somewhere without being tracked. And since everyone thinks he’s dead, no one would go looking for him. As for Cecilia, chances are high that people might just give up looking for some insane woman who disappears from the hospital after a while, particularly if Adrian bribes any number of them to keep quiet.

• Cecilia is also being held in a psychiatric hospital, not a prison or jail. Even if the authorities believe her guilty of killing her sister, they mostly believe she's just deeply unwell. Adrian, after using his brother as a fall guy, could very well come back from the dead the way he does in the movie, by faking his kidnapping. After that, he could use his money and influence to take control of Cecilia's care, possibly indefinitely imprisoning her in his house.

Father of the Year

• So if Adrian's motivation is to get Cecilia back and start a family with her (it's even revealed that he messed with her birth control pills before she left him), why does he keep doing things that risk either killing her or causing her to have a miscarriage (even after getting confirmation that she's pregnant)? There's the scene where they're alone in James' house and he's throwing her around like a rag doll and starts choking her and the fight with the police where she could get caught in the crossfire if the police accidentally shot her instead of him. Really, the only time he stepped in to protect the baby was when he prevented Cecilia from stabbing herself in prison. Assuming Cecilia chose to keep the baby in the end, it's going to be a miracle if it doesn't end up stillborn or with serious birth defects/mental problems because their biological father couldn't control his urge to physically and emotionally abuse his ex for one day. Even when he's pretending to be nice near the end, when he invites Cecilia over for dinner to try to win her back, he's not very good at making sure that the pregnancy will go smoothly since he offered her sushi (something that you have to be careful about eating while pregnant) and wine (something you DEFINITELY shouldn't drink while pregnant) as dinner options before she chose to just have some steak.
  • Adrian's a Domestic Abuser and like all of their kind, he is ultimately a thuggish bully and a meathead. It's likely none of that occurred to him so long as he could have his revenge trip.
  • Adrian likely didn't actually care about the child itself, but saw it as a means to an end. He got Ceciia pregnant as a way to keep her under him (which sadly is a tactic some domestic abusers of both genders use in real life). Being a single parent is tough when you don't have the money or resources to support those in your care. If the child became disabled somehow because of everything that happened, then it would give Cecilia even more reason to return so that they can get proper care throughout their life via Adrian's wealth. Which, naturally, he would hold over her and make it even harder for her to break free for a second time.

Adrian's Phone

• Cecilia had Adrian's cell phone from the attic with pictures of her and Sydney sleeping. Surely she could've shown that to police to prove she was being stalked? I don't see why there wouldn't be any other incriminating info on their as well. And another thing, why did Adrian even take those photos in the first place?
  • Something to jerk off to while he's not in the suit? Cecilia had already lost her friend James when they thought he hit Sydney, so maybe she didn't think the police would believe her.
  • The phone doesn't actually prove anything: anyone can take it and use it, and the movie shows us Cecilia being able to unlock it and enter Adrian's house. This is also another likely reason for Adrian to leave the phone around: it was a way to tease Cecilia letting her know she was being stalked, knowing fully well she couldn't use it (making her feel even more powerless).

Did Tom willingly help or not

• Did Tom willingly help his brother or did Adrian force him to help?
  • When Cecilia calls him out for being a scumbag at the mental hospital, he didn't look very guilty about it. He's either in on it or has been pushed around by Adrian for so long he stopped feeling bad about it and just gave in.
  • While he reads Adrian's will, he starts reading Adrian's abusive spiel without warning (knowing what its purpose was) and insists in reading it even after Cecilia shows clear discomfort, and when Cecilia confronts him about Adrian's invisibility he could have just dismissed it, or provided clues ("what, like a suit?"), instead he actually doubles down and reinforces the gaslighting narrative. This is not someone who participates unwillingly, this is someone committed.

Does Cecilia become a killer near the end as well?

• What I mean is after she kills Adrian and James lets her go she walks out with the invisibility suit in the bag and it looks like she's smiling like she's going to use it for something in the future possibly become the next invisible person to kill people?
  • She's smiling because she's finally free. Then again, they already announced a sequel...

Who was at the house Adrian or Tom?

• When Cecilia was snooping around when she took an Uber there Zeus the dog was barking aware of the Invisible presence was it Adrian or Tom?
  • Logic points to Tom. Adrian's lab seemed to be a full day's drive from where the cast lives, and we know its Adrian who killed Emily and followed Cecilia to the mental hospital. It seems unlikely Tom would find a way to get from the lab to that restaurant fast enough to do what Adrian did.

Giving his brother a suit

• Let's assume Tom is being forced to be Adrian's partner-in-crime, is it a good idea to give the person you belittle and boss around "super powers"? What if Tom decides to use one of the suits to get revenge on Adrian?
  • whatever control Adrian has over Tom he knows that Tom wont crack. Even if he did Adrian probably has countermeasure in play, Like a master control or something.
  • As mentioned above, Tom's behavior would very much imply that he was in it willingly.

Zeus setting off the car alarm.

• Zeus bumps into a car when Cecilia's removing his collar, and the alarm goes off. Are there cars that sensitive or was that simply dramatic license? Many modern cars do have alarms, but I've yet to witness a car alarm go off simply from a person or animal lightly bumping against it. Usually alarms go off when a locked door is opened via methods beyond a key being used, a window is broken, or if an actual crash happens.
  • Some car alarms are really sensitive, they can be set by nearby vibrations. I've lived near the center of a city and hearing car alarms thru the night even when nobody is around, once a car even started blaring when I walked past it!
    • That's interesting. It does make sense Adrian would be the type who'd have such a sensitive car, whereas, many people wouldn't want their car blaring whenever they/their kid/their pet briefly made contact with it. Thank you for answering!

Stabbing an invisible man in the hospital cell.

• Shouldn't the fact that Cecilia stabbed one of the invisible men several times with a fountain pen while faking her suicide be proof of who was in the cell with her? The marks would have to be either on Adrian or Tom, so telling this to the police would be a better way to sink Adrian instead of trying to make him confess at the final dinner scene.