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I’ve never read Aimee Bender’s novel and, based on director Marilyn Agrelo's puzzling adaptation, I am not sure that I ever will. An Invisible Sign is a frustrating mess of undeveloped ideas, wasted story lines, and a series of mental illnesses that I’m not sure were ever honestly diagnosed by the film. With its quirk factor in a multiplied state of awareness, An Invisible Sign puts itself into a Juno-wannabe corner that it never has the confidence to leave.
Opening with a bizarrely twisted animated fairy tale, the film simply has nowhere to go after suggesting that its parts are better than its whole. Twentysomething number-obsessed Mona Gray (Jessica Alba) realizes her life isn’t perfect. She’s mentally ill. Her father is schizophrenic. Her mother just kicked her out of the house and - after learning that she has a degree in mathematics - the local elementary school hires her as a teacher. Things could not get any worse.
They do. She eats soap as a coping mechanism for God’s sake. Clearly, Mona is in over her head with all these new responsibilities. Her elementary class is out of control because she enforces no rules; her father – in spite of her belief in the healing power of knocking on things and seeing the world via numbers – is not getting any better; and a blue-bladed ax hangs on the wall of her classroom (representing the number 7). Now, an equally quirky teacher, Ben (Chris Messina), is making the moves on her. What’s a girl supposed to do?
The mechanics behind the narrative - adapted by Michael Ellis and Pamela Falk (The Wedding Planner) - desperately what you to find meaning in the nonsensical antics of numbers and human nature. There are none. You will realize, about halfway through, that there is nothing to it. This isn’t a representation of life or the world just outside your front door. For all its talk of math and numbers, though, An Invisible Sign follows no logic I know.
Even Mona’s elementary math teacher, Mr. Jones (J.K. Simmons, underused here as he is the only believable character), can’t make sense of her issues. Alba still can’t act all that well. She’s all beauty, no convincing. Here, the make-up folks play down her looks with a serious “plain Jane” makeover that tries to sell her mental hiccups with just a hint of a good-looking chaser. It works. Messina is a good balance to her mental instability, but his character is a tired one and, beyond “getting the girl”, does little to make his audience care for him. Even the performances from the children in Mona’s classroom – while put in some pretty unbelievable situations - are pretty decent and still this film struggles to find its groove.
Director Agrelo tries to keep things fresh and cool by spilling out animated numbers at certain times as Mona knocks upon things. The moments pull the wrong chord, though. It isn’t out of a somber earnest to drive the narrative toward its destination because – after a countless collection of scenes and memories that go nowhere – we have nowhere to go. It’s just a fancy way of trying to keep its audience from totally falling asleep.
It’s being billed as a shy romance but, truthfully, An Invisible Sign is simple nonsense.
MPAA Rating: 
