Grieving comes in many guises. In Courtney Stephens’ Invention, speculative fiction blends with personal history to explore the ways we process death. The subject is Callie Hernandez, an actress and filmmaker whose father died of a COVID-related illness in 2021. There’s much archival footage of the man, mostly television recordings from his times as a kind of telemarketer for new-age healing methods, but Stephens and Hernandez go one further, suggesting an alternative timeline. In this ersatz world, a patent for an electromagnetic healing device is left to her in her father’s will. No categorization does the film justice: it’s about death and mourning, of course, but it’s just as interested in people’s susceptibility to conspiracy.
Invention begins with Hernandez going through the most mundane posthumous rituals. She meets with her father’s lawyer, who informs her about the patent; then later meets his associates, some of whom invested in his projects over the years. For a while Hernandez cuts an apathetic figure, but the more she learns about the device––and notices how others seem eager to take it off her hands––the more her interests are piqued. Could the man she was so lovingly skeptical of have been in the right all along? As Invention follows Hernandez down the rabbit hole, it works wonders at reminding you of the deceptive comfort of narratives while simultaneously stringing you along on one.
If that juicy stuff were all Invention had to offer, it would be compelling enough. But the film succeeds as much as entertainment as it does on aesthetic and conceptual terms. Stephens’ 16mm images are a perfect match for both the archival footage and Hernandez’ fuzzy state of mind––and while you couldn’t call her appearance a choice, necessarily, her familiarity and celebrity do add a little something to Invention‘s secret sauce. As does the decision to cast directors (Joe Swanberg and Caveh Zahedi appear; Sahm McGlynn steals some scenes as a brief love interest) in supporting roles. Adding to this storytelling milieu, Stephens leaves some of her own voice and direction in the final cut, allowing it to spill over its margins. Even images of the device itself, which we see humming and glowing in a blood-red room, hold their own seductive power.
One thing that apparently has certainly not been dreamed up for Invention is Hernandez’s father’s belief in what he preaches––something the filmmakers wisely never mock or condemn. In one moment of post-coital honesty, Hernandez recalls how he used to make funny noises whenever he felt energy in the air, as when someone sang the national anthem at a ball game. When she revisits the memory, you can easily sense a deep love for his eccentricities mixed with all the other warring emotions. How do we mourn such a contradiction? Invention is still trying to figure it out.
Invention premiered at the 2024 Locarno Film Festival.