Invention: Gray and Fading Memory
by Karenna Blomberg
The first weekend of the 2025 Seattle International Film Festival has (so far) been a healing experience for the weary film fan in me. While waiting in line, I overheard a fellow festival goer telling a friend about a film she had just seen, which, by coincidence, I had also seen the night before. “It was . . . well, it was very low-budget,” she said, but whether it was commentary or a criticism I couldn’t quite comprehend. There are bad movies with a visibly low budget and there are excellent movies with the same; I consider “low-budget” to be no indicator of quality, but instead of how much creativity and intricacy is required to tell a story that a “big-budget” film might breeze through. But with this in mind and regardless of this stranger’s intentions with her comments, I think “low-budget” is a good descriptor of Invention.
Directed by Courtney Stephens and co-written by Stephens and star Callie Hernandez, Invention fascinatingly blurs the line between documentary, surrealism, and melodrama. Hernandez plays “Carrie” Hernandez, a semi-fictionalized version of herself in a semi-fictionalized portrayal of her emotional journey after the passing of her estranged father. John Hernandez (the character in the movie, at least), was a snake oil salesman who had bounced from scam to scam before finding his greatest success in the realm of pseudomedicine and energy healing. In spite of his relative notoriety, Carrie finds he was living outside of his means and his estate was made up of mostly debts. In fact, the only thing that he left to her is the patent to an invention for an “atom vibration” healing device that the FDA recalled before John could make a penny off of it.
Curious as to what she can do with her paltry inheritance, Carrie goes to the small town where John lived and encounters a various cast of his kooky friends (most of whom he owed money to) and oddball neighbors. Carrie slowly becomes entangled in her estranged father’s odd life, even forming a romantic connection with the son of one of John’s friends (also one of his creditors), an aspiring stand-up comic. Without fully understanding why, Carrie falls down the rabbit hole of her father’s life, in the hopes of finding the use and meaning behind his zealous madness.
The movie was shot on 35mm film, and the resulting dreamlike graininess certainly contributes to the “low-budget” feel. Hernandez’s performance is disaffected on the surface but remarkably textured the more Carrie invests into her father’s life. Many of the other performances are stilted in contrast, almost as if all the characters are fully aware of the camera and narrowly avoiding eye contact with it. But this is no accident or a result of poor acting or direction. In fact, it feeds into one of the film’s most fascinating elements—its disregard for the fourth wall.
As Invention continues and Carrie spirals deeper into her father’s mindset before his death, scenes are broken up by B-roll shots accompanied by what sounds like actual behind-the-scenes on-set dialogue between Hernandez, Stephens, and the other actors. A few scenes begin with calls of “Speed!” or “Action!” while other shots open with crew members clapping in front of the screen in lieu of a clapper board. Interspersed throughout are clips of actual infomercials that the real John Hernandez made, selling his religious advice and questionable health products alike. It’s a disquieting but surprisingly effective means of keeping the viewer intrigued and enchanted by both Carrie and her curiosity about her father, as well as John himself. There is an enticing lack of information in certain parts of the narrative, which may have been on purpose: The first thing I did after finishing the movie was look up interviews with Stephens and Hernandez to try and piece together what elements are based in reality and which aren’t. This may seem like a frustrating way to make a movie—with purposefully jumbled pieces—but it rings true to Carrie/Callie’s own journey.
The film rings with the emptiness of finality. It is slow paced, contemplative but unnerving. Everything from the cool-toned color grading to the camerawork paints a haunting, dreamlike picture; every element seems designed to spark your curiosity in the same way it sparked Carrie’s. While it may seem a bit too “low-budget” for some, I found that Invention lingers with you just like Carrie’s father lingers with her: like an old photo you weren’t in, a loved one you realize you never knew, a gray and fading memory.