INVISIBLE, THE

Don't be surprised if you find yourself unconsciously listening for the strains of “Unchained Melody” on the soundtrack during Sweden's THE INVISIBLE, which does indeed seem to take major cues from a certain metaphysical Patrick Swayze/Demi Moore blockbuster Hollywood hit of some ten years ago. But just as you are bracing for the appearance of the Scandinavian equivalent of Whoopi Goldberg as a comical medium, the plot veers into unexpected dimensions and you will be thoroughly spirited away by it. Nicklas is an introspective graduating student with literary ambitions and a future creative-writing program waiting for him in London, despite the business plan of his more prosaic mother and the emotional neediness of his best friend Peter. Peter also owes a debt to Annalie, a vicious classmate who seems to pattern her attitude (and wardrobe) after outlaw rappers like Eminem. When one of Annalie's delinquent gang secretly betrays her to the police, the girl hoodlum, thinking Nicklas was the informer, schemes a brutal revenge. The last that Nicklas remembers of his normal existence: being bludgeoned in the woods. Suddenly he's back in class, seeing and hearing his peers but not being perceived by them, as they mock his last poetry paper. Nicklas watches helpless, achingly trapped in limbo as police search for his body. As his mother suffers and Peter lies, a fugitive Annalie may be the only key to rescuing a soul stuck between this world and the next. (In Swedish with English subtitles)