The Invisibles

Don't get too excited, comic book readers: This isn't the long-awaited film version of Grant Morrison's comic of the same name that reputedly inspired The Matrix. Instead, the title refers to celebrities who are "invisible" because people don't see them as they really are. The pain of fame and the unpleasantness of being a junkie are the overriding themes of the day in what is essentially a two-character piece, as rock star Jude (Michael Goorjian) and supermodel Joy (Ally McBeal's Portia De Rossi) hide out in the latter's Paris apartment while on the lam from an involuntary rehab program. Periodic pauses in their self-pity occur when an amusingly French pizza guy (Terry Camilleri) shows up to trade food for chess pieces made of ivory. All this sounds rather dull in theory, but it's actually compellingly watchable. Even though the dialogue is often banal, whether berating the sad price of fame or making silly pop-cultural references (Jude's most profound theory is that everyone in this world is either a Gumby or a Pokey), the stars and the camerawork keep us watching. The Frasier-style scene titles are a little too frequent, the subjective shots of Jude's mind annoying and the frequent sex scenes could use some nudity, but much as the alcoholic ingredients in a Long Island iced tea somehow manage to cancel out the taste of alcohol, so do the irritating ingredients of writer-director Noah Stern's cocktail mysteriously balance and translate into intoxicating drama.