Product Details

• Actors: Jordana Brewster, Cameron Diaz, Christopher Eccleston, Blythe Danner, Camilla Belle
• Directors: Adam Brooks
• Writers: Adam Brooks, Jennifer Egan
• Producers: Arianna C. Bocco, Julia Chasman, Nick Wechsler, Tim Van Rellim
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: New Line Home Video
• VHS Release Date: August 31, 2001
• Run Time: 93 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005NRQI
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #526,844 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

An affecting movie about ghosts and illusions, The Invisible Circus follows Phoebe (Jordana Brewster), an American girl who's retracing the path of her sister Faith (Cameron Diaz), hoping to discover what led to Faith's mysterious death. Using the postcards that Faith sent her from Europe as a map, Phoebe travels from Amsterdam to Paris to Portugal, learning from Faith's ex-boyfriend Wolf (Christopher Eccleston) about a side of Faith that Phoebe knew nothing about--a side that overturns all of Phoebe's cherished beliefs about her sister and herself. The performances in The Invisible Circus are uneven, and yet the culmination of the movie captures something piercingly sad, something acute and evocative about how survivors create myths about the lost, myths that can both help and hinder their lives. Blythe Danner plays the mother of the two girls in a brief but subtly powerful performance. --Bret Fetzer

From The New Yorker

With a plot device that could have been solved by a phone call and a voice-over that's heavy on bumper-sticker wisdom, this movie joins a long list of annoying films about that halcyon era known as "the sixties." Here, the spirit of the times is represented by Faith (Cameron Diaz), a carefree tulip who goes to Europe with her boyfriend Wolf (Christopher Eccleston) and manages to die mysteriously in Portugal. Her sister Phoebe (Jordana Brewster) picks up her trail years later and, in the company of Wolf, follows in her sister's footsteps. A few flashbacks later, we learn what we already knew: the sixties were crazy and destructive, but everything was real, man, really real. -Michael Agger
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful film, November 30, 2006

By 

Laura J. Eklund "Laura59" (El Cajon, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Invisible Circus (DVD)

It is 1969. Phoebe(Camilla Belle) is an 11 year old girl growing up with an idealized vision of her 19 year old sister Faith(Cameron Diaz). Faith is the doer, the truth-seeker, the fixer of all the wrongs in the world. Then one day, Phoebe and her mother Gail(Blythe Danner) receive word that Faith is dead. Faith has killed herself. Both Phoebe and Gail are overwhelmed by this news and, although saddened, Gail mourns. Phoebe can't let it go. Phoebe decides to go to Europe and find out what happened.

It is now 1977. Phoebe(Jordana Brewster) is 18 and decides to go to Europe over the objections of her mother to discover the truth. When alive, Faith was inseparable from a man she called "Wolf"(Christopher Eccleston). Though Wolf claimed not to know anything about Faith's last days, Phoebe convinces him to tell her everything. Within days, Wolf realizes that he hadn't let go of the past either and he joins Phoebe on her pilgrimage to Portugal.

In the end, Wolf is able to tell of Faith's decent into drug abuse and his own guilt at not preventing the suicide. Although angry, Phoebe realizes in the end how human and fragile Faith really was.

I liked this movie. I'm old enough to remember the bank robberies of the Red Army and I was 10 in 1969. This story was familiar ground for me. I can still remember young men trying to decide if they should go to Canada or not to avoid the draft.

The story is simple, but probably occurred several times in real life during that period. Camilla Belle was perky, enjoyable and fun to watch as she portrayed the young adoring sister excited by what was happening around her. Jordana Brewster slid easily into the role of the older Phoebe. Blythe Danner was the ever supportive mother, a role she is all too familiar with on American TV, unfortunately. I would have liked to see her with stronger material to work with.
Cameron Diaz played the immature anarchist perfectly. Though at times, her performance of a 1960s activist seemed to come off a news reel. Watching her dance on the wall, kind of made me cringe.
Of all the characters, it was Christopher Eccleston's Wolf, that made the most growth. When we are introduced to the character at the beginning of the movie, we can see he is a worldly man. He is a patient and kind man filled with anger at the world's injustices. In the end, he realizes the direction he and Faith are headed is wrong and begins to "grow up" deciding he should fight against injustice in his own way. Faith refuses to join him in this and it eventually leads to her death. Eccleston's Wolf is the most real of all the characters.

For most of us, our idealism either dies or we adjust and conquer through other ways. This is what the Wolf character did.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Generation Gap Examined..., May 9, 2004

By 

Dean Anderson (New York, New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Invisible Circus (DVD)

I find this film fascinating for its subtext. It begins with a San Francisco family torn apart: A father's untimely death and his eldest daughter's demise in some far off part of Europe during the politically charged 1960s.

Left behind are the mother and youngest daughter. When the daughter wants to answer the lingering questions she has about her big sib, she sets out to trace the path that her sister took, and to find out what she could about the events.

Of course, she is cautioned every step of the way, first by her mom, then by her sister's long time beau, who very reluctantly and uncomfortably begins to recount the story of their excursion across the continent and their involvement with the "peace movement," and what he knew about his lover's death.

The "Generation Gap" I refer here is the elder "Baby Boom" daughter, played by Cameron Diaz, and her "do anything" free spirited ways, and her kid sis, portrayed in a very reserved performance by Jordana Brewster, who demonstrates how a few years can make a big difference in how you get treated. Here, seemingly trapped in her existence, she plays the part of a bird trying to find her way out of the cage she has been locked in for her life, and trying to get some answers from a world that seems intent on "protecting" her.

This isn't an action picture. I wouldn't even consider it a road picture, even though it takes place in Amsterdam, Paris and Portugal, beautiful locations all. But it is a psychological drama, about putting people's actions into a context, be it historical or just understandable. If you're born between the late 50s to the mid 70s, this film just might strike an important chord with you.

Wonderful performances from Diaz, Brewster, and Christopher Eccleston as the former boyfiend who plays tour guide to both Europe and his ex's final days.

Recommended.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Moving, May 15, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The Invisible Circus (DVD)

This video is very moving and intense. It is the story of a girl who committed suicide in the 1960s, and her now-grown-up sister's attempt to understand what happened. It seamlessly traces and intertwines both sisters' trips through Europe, and shows how the older sister went further and further into rebellion until she reached a point she could not turn back or go on. It shows the older sister's integrity - even though she did not get caught in her crime, and faced only her own guilt, she was unable to live with herself, and saw suicide as the only way out. It shows the boyfriend's love of her, even as he tried to get her to pull back, and his attempt to understand, years later, what had happened. And it shows the sister's and mother's attempts to live with what had happened. It is a very powerful movie. Diaz shines in her role, and Ecclestein, Danner and the other minor characters are also very powerful. Brewster is a little weak - a more experienced actor could have brought a little more depth to her character, and Ecclestein's wig was horrendous.
Those two minor flaws, however, could not dim the beauty or power of this movie.