An Invisible Sign

Mona Gray (played by Jessica Alba) has only one passion in her life, numbers. Everything else for Mona has been sacrificed in the hopes that her father will get better. As she grew into a woman, Mona becomes a isolated woman in a world that thinks of her as odd and weird. After Mona’s mother kicks her out, she gets Mona a job at the elementary school as the new math teacher. Terrified at first, Mona is faced with students that will test her ability to be able to handle these children without going further into herself. As she shows her new students her love for numbers, Mona is able to make a connection with one girl who is more similar to Mona that this little girl could almost be a mirror image of Mona.

1+2=3:
An Invisible Sign has such a simple plot about a girl who has went into a shell, is a little odd, has to deal with her father being sick, while getting a new job that slowly forces her to change her way of life. It’s also a plot that has been done before where the main character is changed by one of the child characters of the movie. What An Invisible Sign is about though is Jessica Alba’s character Mona realizing that she is living like a child and will have to learn how to be the adult she is. What makes her become the adult is by having to teach math to elementary school kids and it’s here that she finds out that she can allow herself to have feelings again and like more than just numbers and math.

Jessica Alba gives a great performance as Mona Gray where she really brings to life this meek woman who has tried to stop being happy because she loves her father. Considering how this movie is not one that is an intellectual, comedic, or even a romantic movie, there’s a lot of all this going on here. Every one of the characters have some sort of odd behavior that makes them stand out from the rest of the world but they are all likeable. Mona Gray’s neighbor Mr. Jones (played by J.K. Simmons) was Mona’s math teacher when she was just a kid who helped inspire young Mona to love numbers so much. Both Mona and Mr. Jones has an obsession with numbers, Ben Smith (played by Chris Messina) hasn’t been able to love anyone, one student has a life similar to Monas as well as a liking for numbers, while the principle of the schools seems to be a giddy little woman. There’s all sort of odd personality traits being flung around in this movie that it looks like the every person in town must be a little weird. Not that this hurts the movie, it in fact helps to show that even though the characters might act like an everyday person they all still have these little quarks that make them unique.

As well as being full of this odd characters, this movie has a good undertone showing how Mona comes to terms with her father illness, the way she treated he neighbor Mr. Jones, becoming a mentor to a little girl, and getting herself to enjoy life again. While this movie is more on the serious side with how the characters have to deal with the unfairness of life, there’s some romance going on between the characters Mona Gray and Ben Smith. From the moment the two characters meet on screen they romance begins between the two but it’s one that is not the normal courtship.

It’s all these little subplots in the movie that makes it a fun watch and one that ended up being a little emotional. I was prepared for a movie that was going to be about a shy, weird girl who don’t k
now how to act while with other people but what it was a lot more than this. It’s a movie about discovery, about loss, love, acceptance, forgiveness, and a odd coming of age tale. There’s a good flow to this movie, which with the acting performance given by Jessica Alba and Lisa (played by Sophie Nyweide), made An Invisible Sign a lot of fun to watch as well as being a touching movie with emotional moments. I liked how they kept the movie simple, with no deep meaning being put into the actions of the characters, just emotions that someone could really have because they just can’t deal with how horrible their life is getting. Though I did like the ending I also didn’t like it because it was really the only part of the movie that I couldn’t agree with having happened.

MATH ON BLU RAY:
Nothing too impressive about the Blu Ray aspect of this movie, it looks about as good as what I see on a HD television station. At times there are scenes where it is dark and there is some noise, one scene at the end when it is night there is a lot of grain and grit that’s seen in the picture but it only lasts for about a minute and it’s not that vital of a scene, so no harm done. What I liked the most about this Blu Ray was how well the audio levels are on it. The levels here are even enough that I didn’t have to touch the volume levels on my television to be able to hear what was being said, which at times could have been needed because Jessica Alba’s character is a soft spoken woman. Sadly though, there is only one special feature that’s the trailer on this Blu Ray. Because the picture quality looks just about what a normal HD television show looks and no special features, there’s nothing that says this can’t be seen on a DVD rather than the more expensive Blu Ray.