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‘Intrusion’ Review: We’re All Trying to Find the Guy Who Did This

This domestic thriller from Netflix is painfully dumb and laughably obvious.

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By Calum Marsh

In the simplest terms, “Intrusion” is about a woman who begins to think that her husband may be up to something sinister. The movie makes it immediately obvious, however, that her husband really is up to something sinister, because he’s always prowling around suspiciously, with ominous music playing pretty much whenever he’s onscreen. But this is a feature-length thriller, and it needs to buy some time and build suspense, so the faithful wife is obliged to be very, very obtuse and draw some very foolish conclusions. It’s an exercise in watching someone have the world’s slowest revelation.

The wife is Meera (Freida Pinto), a cancer survivor and therapist, and the husband is Henry (Logan Marshall-Green), an architect who has designed the couple’s modernist dream home in rural Corrales, outside of Albuquerque. After their home is burgled, Meera surmises that they may have been targeted, and seeks answers by investigating Henry’s private life, which is both highly dubious and conveniently easy to look into. This is one of those mysteries where both the suspect and the sleuth keep making the kind of implausible, idiotic mistakes that generate trite suspense. Henry leaves evidence lying around with laughable carelessness; Meera roots around his office as he’s right about to walk in the door.

If “Intrusion” has one redeeming feature, it’s Marshall-Green, whose performance as the husband with a dark secret has a crackling, tightly controlled intensity far more nuanced and persuasive than anything else in the film. Marshall-Green was similarly sensational in Karyn Kusama’s excellent thriller “The Invitation,” but the director of “Intrusion,” Adam Salky, squanders the actor’s terrific work. It’s tempting to imagine this material realized with the maniac verve of a film like James Wan’s “Malignant,” where the ridiculous verges on camp, instead of how Salky plays it: thuddingly literal and painfully dumb.

Intrusion Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 32 minutes. Watch on Netflix.

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Intrusion review – Netflix home invasion thriller passes muster

A vacant performance from Freida Pinto can’t quite sink a mostly enjoyable, if mostly familiar, domestic mystery

T here’s an adequately scattered trail of breadcrumbs running throughout the brisk Netflix thriller Intrusion that starts us off in one subgenre before leading us somewhere entirely different. It’s not that either place is particularly original or that the reveal is all that revealing (your overall enjoyment will depend on how much deja vu you’re able to stomach in one sitting) but there’s simple, low-stakes fun to be had along the way, a passable Friday night potboiler that will boil away to nothing as soon as the credits come into view.

That seems to be just about enough for most who log on to Netflix these days, searching for something to idly double-screen, and the streamer’s much-ballyhooed year of original films (one a week!) has so far brought us some slightly above average TV movies with stars you vaguely know doing things you’ve vaguely seen before. That’s exactly what we have with Intrusion, as Freida Pinto (you know, from Slumdog Millionaire) and Logan Marshall-Green (you know, from Prometheus) star as a reliable thriller staple: the handsome heterosexual couple who have the perfect home, jobs, relationship and skin. Meera and Henry have moved to a small town into an extravagant modern house that he himself designed but is their presence unsettling the locals? Is that why one night, they arrive home to find that someone has broken in?

Initially, it’s just a robbery but the next time, it’s something far worse and the couple find themselves fighting for their lives against a group of masked invaders. Henry manages to gain control and shoots them but they’re then faced with the murky aftermath and a story that doesn’t add up.

Post-2008’s insidiously potent The Strangers, home invasion thrillers have been swiftly piling up, a cheap, simple subgenre that appeals to our base fear of feeling unsafe in the one place we should feel safest. What’s interesting about Intrusion is that the home invasion is only the beginning and writer Chris Sparling (whose genre credits go high – Buried – and mostly low – Lakewood , ATM) looks at what happens when the pieces are then picked up and sifted through. Meera’s sifting is the most entertaining element of the film, as we play detective along with her, rifling through drawers, utilising tech and, as the tagline suggests, asking questions she perhaps doesn’t want answered. Where Meera ends up is no great surprise (I called it in the trailer and then confirmed it in my head within the first 15 minutes, no medal thanks) but it’s a twist that takes the film to an appealingly nasty place, edging from thriller to horror with an effectively gnarly finale.

It’s propulsive enough to work in the moment although our investment teeters thanks to a vacant central performance from a lethargic Pinto, an actor who often struggles to connect with her material and then, in turn, her audience. It’s a shame as the character’s swift, gruelling descent from having to losing it all could have allowed another actor to add some emotional heft to an otherwise mechanical story. Marshall-Green is a more confident presence but there’s a distinct lack of chemistry between the pair and so again, we’re kept surface-level throughout. Like most of Netflix’s output, it’s plagued by that all-too-familiar visual flatness (it’s not a movie, it’s a Netflix movie ) so while the house and its occupants possess an otherworldly beauty, the film surrounding them is predictably pedestrian-looking, director Adam Salky failing to deviate from the dog-eared Netflix playbook.

As yet more content, it’s an agreeable option, the simple A-to-B-to-C plot proving involving enough for us to not exactly care what happens but at least see how unpleasant it all gets. The streak of perversity at Intrusion’s centre nudges it above the norm, briefly waking us up before we sleepily click on something else.

Intrusion is now available on Netflix

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‘Intrusion’ Review: Dream House Turns Nightmare in Pedestrian Netflix Thriller

Freida Pinto and Logan Marshall-Green play an upscale couple under threat in this watchable if uninspired suspense tale.

By Dennis Harvey

Dennis Harvey

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If we have learned anything from movies of recent years, it is that moving into one’s dream house will surely lead to terror and death. That improbable yet familiar arc is traced again in “Intrusion,” wherein the domesticity under threat belongs to a wide-eyed Freida Pinto . Director Adam Salky and writer Christopher Sparling’s thriller will provide uninspired if serviceable fodder for subscribers when it launches on that platform Sept. 22.

The Parsons have just moved from Boston into a luxe, secluded New Mexico home that Henry ( Logan Marshall-Green ) designed, in part to provide him and Meera (Pinto) a fresh start after her difficult recovery from breast cancer. After dining out one night, they return to discover the place has been ransacked, though the intruders took nothing apart from a laptop and two cellphones. An alarm system is hastily installed — yet there’s another break-in, this one while the couple are asleep in bed.

That event has a much more violent denouement, the perps turning out to be a family of local laborers who all worked on building the house. Their rap sheets are long enough to suggest simple criminal intent. But notably, a young woman related to the three men had gone missing a month before. And as Meera accidentally stumbles on, then deliberately seeks out, clues to explain a deepening mystery, it is her husband’s actions that begin to seem the most inexplicable and worrying.

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The Parsons home (an actual residence in the Albuquerque area, its interior redressed by production designers Brandon Tonner-Connolly and Matt Hyland) is tasteful, but also a little bland and impersonal. Kind of like their marriage — and their movie. Apart from Meera’s recent health condition, these characters aren’t given any detailing in the script; they have jobs that remain vague, and no visible friends or family that might illuminate them.

Nor do the attractive leads add much, with Pinto running a rote gamut of damsel-in-distress emotions that make her character seem too old-school “helpless” even as she’s Nancy Drew-ing around. As for Marshall-Green, he does not quite pull off the revelation of a major hidden side here. Both these performers have been fine elsewhere, but can’t seem to rise above “Intrusion’s” genre conventions and contrivance. They come off as a photogenic Barbie and Ken whose drastically altered dynamic under crisis is no more convincing than the plastic mutual cooing they’ve apparently sustained for 12 years of marriage.

Nonetheless, the film is just slick, pacy and intriguing enough for us to suspend sufficient disbelief while it’s going — never mind afterward, when it all evaporates from the memory in a trice. Salky doesn’t get to demonstrate the more nuanced dramatic touch of his prior features “Dare” and “I Smile Back.” Still, he works up an acceptable froth of urgency in suspense or action when required.

If this is one of the more generic thrillers Sparling has written to date (others include the excellent Ryan Reynolds vehicle “Buried” and newly Toronto-premiered “Lakewood”), it still springs an adequate number of plot twists. They might’ve packed more punch in a film with greater attention to atmosphere and character. But if you regard “Intrusion” as a kind of audiovisual pulp paperback, it will pass the time ably enough — like a page-turner you might buy at the airport in Boston, then finish and abandon to the seat-back pocket upon landing in Albuquerque.

Reviewed online, San Francisco, Sept. 20, 2021. Running time: 93 MIN.

• Production: A Netflix release of a Netflix presentation of a Creator Media Entertainment, Sea Smoke Entertainment, EMJAG production. Producers: Kyle Benn, Josh Weinstock, Alexandra Milchan, Matthew Myers, Russell Hollander, Christopher Sparling. Co-producer: Martin Salgo.
• Crew: Director: Adam Salky. Screenplay: Christopher Sparling. Camera: Eric Lin. Editor: Ben Baudhuin. Music: Alex Heffes.
• With: Freida Pinto, Logan Marshall-Green, Robert John Burke, Megan Elisabeth Kelly, Sarah Minnich, Hayes Hargrove.

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‘Intrusion’ Review: Freida Pinto Stars in a Netflix Home Invasion Thriller That Could Have Been Much More

Siddhant adlakha.

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There’s an incredibly interesting story lurking somewhere beneath “Intrusion,” about the way mistrust and paranoia can slowly chip away at a marriage. The film, however, eschews this tale in favor of something a little more rote, and a little bit trashier. It’s a fun watch, to be sure; as a home invasion movie of sorts, it has a number of thrilling moments, and lead actors Freida Pinto and Logan Marshall-Green each do a stellar job with what they’re given. However, the final product also exudes trepidation about its most intriguing aesthetic and narrative elements — ideas which may have only enhanced its genre sensibilities, had the filmmakers further pursued them.

Married couple Meera (Pinto) and Henry (Marshall-Green), a psychiatrist and an architect, met in college in Boston, but their fancy new duplex sits in rural New Mexico. Per the film’s dialogue, their big move was owed at least in part to the wide-open landscape, which director Adam Salky and cinematographer Eric Lin present in picturesque fashion, even if they never quite capture the relationship between the characters and the space around them. How they feel about their surroundings is (or ought to be) paramount, in a story where their sense of comfort is thrown out of balance by a violent late-night break-in, which results in Henry shooting one of the perpetrators dead, using a gun Meera didn’t know he owned.

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What initially follows is an excavation of the encounter’s fallout, between Meera’s lingering PTSD, a police investigation about the wider circumstances of the attack, and the couple’s increasing disconnect. Their secrets, both large and small, begin slowly chipping away at what seems like a happy relationship. Meera, who’s recovered from breast cancer in the past, hasn’t been entirely forthcoming about recent developments, while Henry ceases to open about his nightly whereabouts. However, this carefully crafted character drama soon switches gears, when fewer details about the case seem to add up, and Meera begins investigating a number of leads, including some related to her husband, and the way he built and designed their house.

It’s here that the film’s construction begins to feel half-baked, compared to what came before. In earlier scenes, where the focus is squarely on Meera’s doubts and silent realizations, the camera weaves and tilts as it moves through space or pushes in on her, magnifying her lingering sensations in the process. However, once the film takes on a mystery bent, its focus on physical details is awkward, misplaced, and worst of all, noncommittal. The camera stands mostly still as Meera reacts to addresses, logos, and other bits of information that appear to mean something to her, but few of these things are ever established for the audience, and so their meaning remains vague for unbearably lengthy stretches of time, especially as the plot begins to displace most of the character drama. Pinto is even shot in profile for at least one of these sequences, which really doesn’t help unearth what’s meant to be happening (emotionally or logistically). Were it not for the film’s suitably jagged and propulsive music by Alex Heffes, which hints at how all this information might eventually fall into place, such scenes of discovery would be entirely perfunctory.

It also seems, at times, like director Salky and screenwriter Chris Sparling are left unaware of some of the added cultural baggage (and opportunity for an even deeper marital wedge) that arises thanks to Freida Pinto’s presence. It’s unclear whether Meera was always meant to be an Indian character, or whether her name and backstory — a single, stray line about her having moved to the U.S. for college — came about after Pinto was cast, but her foreignness (in general) and her Indianness (in specific) lead to a couple of interesting dynamics.

For one thing, the presence of a gun in the story is a big deal, but its sudden emergence is tied only to questions of Henry’s dishonesty when it comes to owning a firearm, rather than what that firearm might represent to Meera as a non-American caught in a distinctly American story. She’s a character to whom the very idea of a gun might, at least in theory, be more aberrant or shocking, than if she had grown up in the United States, where guns are common, and while this story beat is within the realm of possibility, instead, the gun soon fades from conversation.

Additionally, Pinto’s performance — specifically, her accent — also speaks to Meera’s sense of discomfort within the story. As a woman who’s spent time in the U.S. but whose speech retains elements of Indianness, her delivery is often restrained and measured, as if she’s constantly considering the right syllable to hit, and the exact balance of Indian and American enunciation in her voice, the way she might if she and Henry had only been dating a short while (Marshall-Green, meanwhile, feels totally at ease when he speaks). But while Meera’s dialogue frequently searches for the right place to land, her face tells a different story. Pinto’s performance is exacting and precise in quiet, personal moments — especially moments of doubt and contemplation —as if who Meera is in her own private world is at a disconnect from who she is around Henry (though the film never explores this dichotomy).

Marshall-Green’s work is equally nuanced, as a man who constantly needs to care for someone else, both for selfish and selfless reasons. His performance is remarkably balanced. There’s something unsettling about Henry; the way he concedes arguments feels ever-so-slightly resentful, and the way he peeks out from behind his unassuming glasses is like he’s surveying the world around him.

Unfortunately, Henry’s bespectacled appearance, coupled with the film’s home invasion plot and some other key details, also brings to mind the far superior film “Straw Dogs” by Sam Peckinpah, which “Intrusion” feels like it’s trying to subvert in several ways. It doesn’t have the thematic heft or careful craftsmanship necessary to do so, but it has just enough by way of excitement, action, and winding turns to be worth a watch.

“Intrusion” is now available to stream on Netflix .

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Home » Streaming Service » Netflix

Intrusion (2021) review – is there more to this robbery?

This article discusses the Netflix film Intrusion (2021) and will not contain spoilers.

Soapy, trashing, and thrilling. If those are qualities you want from a film, Intrusion may be for you!

In just over 90 minutes, Intrusion tells the story of Meera (Freida Pinto), who, after her home is targeted for home invasions two times, begins to suspect what the reasoning behind it could be. The major downside of Intrusion is that the answer to her question is clearly evident after half an hour. However, don’t let that put you off too much. With this type of film, the trashy drama that follows is what will keep the audience interested enough (hopefully) to watch until the end. 

The vibe with Intrusion is that the audience should always be on the edge of their seats and not fully aware of what will happen next. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always do that. It’s predictable, and nothing of what develops on-screen is shocking.  But on a brighter note, it has enough action and excitement to keep you hooked. The cast performs well in their roles, and even though you  just know  how the film will conclude, anyone that is watching will likely be curious enough, just to see how it all ends.

The certificate for Intrusion is 12, and that could be purely why the film doesn’t electrify the screen, as in other films such as The Strangers , Saw, or even A Classic Horror Story . But the positive aspect of the 12 certificate is that it could be an easy film to watch with any teenage relatives in the household, without any worry about high levels of violence and/or sex/nudity.

Still, Intrusion does what it says on the tin. It will easily pass the 90-minute runtime for those watching. While it may not be remembered long after finishing, there’s enough to warrant interest throughout the duration.

What do you think of Netflix film Intrusion (2021)? Comment below

Article by Jonathon Wilson

Jonathon is one of the co-founders of Ready Steady Cut and has been an instrumental part of the team since its inception in 2017. Jonathon has remained involved in all aspects of the site’s operation, mainly dedicated to its content output, remaining one of its primary Entertainment writers while also functioning as our dedicated Commissioning Editor, publishing over 6,500 articles.

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Violence, jump scares in entertaining thriller.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

No positive messages in dream-home-turns-nightmare

Movie centered on upscale married couple with succ

Meera is an Indian American woman who has just mov

Home invaders are shot and killed. Woman who has b

Woman shown in a shower, filmed from the back, no

Infrequent profanity, including "bulls--t," "s--t,

Uber mentioned by name.

Wine drinking on a dinner date. Cocktail drinking

Parents need to know that Intrusion is a 2021 thriller in which a successful married couple move into their dream home, only to discover horrific truths in the aftermath of a home invasion. Expect some thriller violence throughout and jump scares galore. A missing woman is discovered chained to a chair and…

Positive Messages

No positive messages in dream-home-turns-nightmare thriller.

Positive Role Models

Movie centered on upscale married couple with successful careers, but all is not what it seems.

Diverse Representations

Meera is an Indian American woman who has just moved to a small New Mexico town with her husband. Some people of color at a housewarming party.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Home invaders are shot and killed. Woman who has been kidnapped is shown being dragged by the hair by her assailant. Character bludgeoned in forehead with a skyscraper figurine, killed. A missing woman is shown traumatized, tied up in a chair, and held prisoner. Woman tied up in a secret lair. Fighting with punches and kicks. Jump scares galore, including a barking dog, and flashbacks to a home invasion. Car accident, no injuries.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Woman shown in a shower, filmed from the back, no nudity.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Infrequent profanity, including "bulls--t," "s--t," "pissed," "damn," "bitch."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

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Drinking, drugs & smoking.

Wine drinking on a dinner date. Cocktail drinking at a party; husband says that his wife has had too many mojitos as a way to explain her disappearance from a housewarming party.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Intrusion is a 2021 thriller in which a successful married couple move into their dream home, only to discover horrific truths in the aftermath of a home invasion. Expect some thriller violence throughout and jump scares galore. A missing woman is discovered chained to a chair and traumatized, and another woman is soon also tied up with her mouth sealed shut with tape. Home invaders are shot and killed. A character is bludgeoned in the forehead with a figurine and killed; some blood. A woman is shown being dragged by her hair as she screams. Fighting with punches and kicks. Some language, including "bulls--t," "s--t," "pissed," "damn," and "bitch." Wine and cocktail drinking. One of the lead characters gets into a car accident after being a distracted driver. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Based on 1 parent review

What's the Story?

In INTRUSION, Meera ( Freida Pinto ) and Henry Parsons ( Logan Marshall-Green ) have just left Boston to move into their dream home near a small town in New Mexico. Henry, a successful architect, designed the home, and it seems the perfect place for the couple to begin a new life after Meera's recent breast cancer scare. Moved in, Meera resumes her career as a therapist, and the couple seem to be living an ideal life. These illusions are soon shattered when, after a dinner date, Meera and Henry return to find that their home has been broken into and vandalized, with their smartphones and laptop stolen. Meera is traumatized by the robbery, and Henry takes steps to secure the home, including installing a high-tech home security system. While they try to settle back into normalcy, one night while they are sleeping, the home invaders return. They tie up Meera, but after Henry frees her, she learns that Henry keeps a gun hidden in one of her plants, and as she escapes to the car, he kills them. While talking to the police after the home invasion, the investigators tell Henry and Meera that a family of career criminals on the poor side of town were behind the home invasion, and that also the daughter of the family went missing one month ago. As the discovery of the gun has already created an air of mistrust between Meera and Henry, they try to pick up the pieces and move on with their lives. Meera begins to harbor new suspicions. After he forgets his wallet while driving to the store, Meera follows him and discovers that he wasn't actually going to the store. A look at Henry's GPS history reveals other visits to out-of-the-way and very questionable locales. While Henry tries to put Meera's mind at ease, further investigations begin to reveal some ugly truths, and Meera must discover what really happened with the home invasion, and how nothing in her life is what it seems.

Is It Any Good?

This is an entertaining, if not exactly groundbreaking, thriller from the "This Dream Home Is Not What It Seems" file. Intrusion has its moments, as the plot twists twist and the jump scares scare. Suspension of disbelief frays but doesn't completely rip away. Successful architect Henry has designed a dream home for himself and his wife Meera as they escape the "rat race" of Boston to live on the far-enough outskirts of a New Mexico hamlet. It's easy for the audience to get as wrapped up in the seemingly good taste and luxury of this dream home, even as it starts to gradually sink in that it doesn't have much warmth, as it's all angles and gray, as impersonal as an Ikea showroom. Soon enough, this house becomes as tiresome as the close-up jump scares of Meera chopping produce at the kitchen island, and so by the time the third act story payoffs unfurl with visual menace and discordant horror movie synth tones, the movie ends as it teeters on the edge of wearing out its welcome.

The quality of the acting is what keeps viewers engaged, even as you're likely to later question plot points that seem a little too forced. Meera, who is traumatized and anxious through much of the movie, suddenly finds the strength to enter a sketchy trailer park, break into a trailer, and steal some mail. They've just moved to this small New Mexico town, but already seem to have a large group of friends, friends who look like they stepped out of advertisement banners for trendy upscale condominiums under construction. There are other examples, but in spite of this, it's an entertaining thriller.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about thriller movies like Intrusion . How is this similar to and different from other thriller movies? What makes an enjoyable thriller?

How did the movie use jump scares as a way to create suspense and even fool the viewer into thinking that something real was happening to the characters? Why do you think jump scares are such a big part of thrillers?

Were you surprised by any of the plot twists in the movie? Why or why not? How are plot twists often the thing that makes or breaks thrillers?

Movie Details

• On DVD or streaming : September 22, 2021
• Cast : Logan Marshall-Green , Freida Pinto , Robert John Burke
• Director : Adam Salky
• Inclusion Information : Female actors, Indian/South Asian actors
• Studio : Netflix
• Genre : Thriller
• Run time : 92 minutes
• MPAA rating : NR
• Last updated : February 17, 2023

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‘Intrusion’ Review: Freida Pinto Stars in a Netflix Home Invasion Thriller That Could Have Been Much More

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There’s an incredibly interesting story lurking somewhere beneath “ Intrusion ,” about the way mistrust and paranoia can slowly chip away at a marriage. The film, however, eschews this tale in favor of something a little more rote, and a little bit trashier. It’s a fun watch, to be sure; as a home invasion movie of sorts, it has a number of thrilling moments, and lead actors . However, the final product also exudes trepidation about its most intriguing aesthetic and narrative elements — ideas which may have only enhanced its genre sensibilities, had the filmmakers further pursued them.

Married couple Meera (Pinto) and Henry (Marshall-Green), a psychiatrist and an architect, met in college in Boston, but their fancy new duplex sits in rural New Mexico. Per the film’s dialogue, their big move was owed at least in part to the wide-open landscape, which director Adam Salky and cinematographer Eric Lin present in picturesque fashion, even if they never quite capture the relationship between the characters and the space around them. How they feel about their surroundings is (or ought to be) paramount, in a story where their sense of comfort is thrown out of balance by a violent late-night break-in, which results in Henry shooting one of the perpetrators dead, using a gun Meera didn’t know he owned.

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What initially follows is an excavation of the encounter’s fallout, between Meera’s lingering PTSD, a police investigation about the wider circumstances of the attack, and the couple’s increasing disconnect. Their secrets, both large and small, begin slowly chipping away at what seems like a happy relationship. Meera, who’s recovered from breast cancer in the past, hasn’t been entirely forthcoming about recent developments, while Henry ceases to open about his nightly whereabouts. However, this carefully crafted character drama soon switches gears, when fewer details about the case seem to add up, and Meera begins investigating a number of leads, including some related to her husband, and the way he built and designed their house.

It’s here that the film’s construction begins to feel half-baked, compared to what came before. In earlier scenes, where the focus is squarely on Meera’s doubts and silent realizations, the camera weaves and tilts as it moves through space or pushes in on her, magnifying her lingering sensations in the process. However, once the film takes on a mystery bent, its focus on physical details is awkward, misplaced, and worst of all, noncommittal. The camera stands mostly still as Meera reacts to addresses, logos, and other bits of information that appear to mean something to her, but few of these things are ever established for the audience, and so their meaning remains vague for unbearably lengthy stretches of time, especially as the plot begins to displace most of the character drama. Pinto is even shot in profile for at least one of these sequences, which really doesn’t help unearth what’s meant to be happening (emotionally or logistically). Were it not for the film’s suitably jagged and propulsive music by Alex Heffes, which hints at how all this information might eventually fall into place, such scenes of discovery would be entirely perfunctory.

It also seems, at times, like director Salky and screenwriter Chris Sparling are left unaware of some of the added cultural baggage (and opportunity for an even deeper marital wedge) that arises thanks to Freida Pinto ’s presence. It’s unclear whether Meera was always meant to be an Indian character, or whether her name and backstory — a single, stray line about her having moved to the U.S. for college — came about after Pinto was cast, but her foreignness (in general) and her Indianness (in specific) lead to a couple of interesting dynamics.

For one thing, the presence of a gun in the story is a big deal, but its sudden emergence is tied only to questions of Henry’s dishonesty when it comes to owning a firearm, rather than what that firearm might represent to Meera as a non-American caught in a distinctly American story. She’s a character to whom the very idea of a gun might, at least in theory, be more aberrant or shocking, than if she had grown up in the United States, where guns are common, and while this story beat is within the realm of possibility, instead, the gun soon fades from conversation.

Additionally, Pinto’s performance — specifically, her accent — also speaks to Meera’s sense of discomfort within the story. As a woman who’s spent time in the U.S. but whose speech retains elements of Indianness, her delivery is often restrained and measured, as if she’s constantly considering the right syllable to hit, and the exact balance of Indian and American enunciation in her voice, the way she might if she and Henry had only been dating a short while (Marshall-Green, meanwhile, feels totally at ease when he speaks). But while Meera’s dialogue frequently searches for the right place to land, her face tells a different story. Pinto’s performance is exacting and precise in quiet, personal moments — especially moments of doubt and contemplation —as if who Meera is in her own private world is at a disconnect from who she is around Henry (though the film never explores this dichotomy).

Marshall-Green’s work is equally nuanced, as a man who constantly needs to care for someone else, both for selfish and selfless reasons. His performance is remarkably balanced. There’s something unsettling about Henry; the way he concedes arguments feels ever-so-slightly resentful, and the way he peeks out from behind his unassuming glasses is like he’s surveying the world around him.

Unfortunately, Henry’s bespectacled appearance, coupled with the film’s home invasion plot and some other key details, also brings to mind the far superior film “Straw Dogs” by Sam Peckinpah, which “Intrusion” feels like it’s trying to subvert in several ways. It doesn’t have the thematic heft or careful craftsmanship necessary to do so, but it has just enough by way of excitement, action, and winding turns to be worth a watch.

“Intrusion” is now available to stream on Netflix .

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Intrusion’ on Netflix, in Which Freida Pinto Can’t Make a Generic Psychological Thriller Interesting

Where to stream:.

• Intrusion (2021)

• Stream It Or Skip It

Stream It Or Skip It: 'The Final: Attack on Wembley' on Netflix, a Documentary Look at the Ugly Events Surrounding England’s Euro 2020 Final Appearance

Stream it or skip it: 'cooking up murder: uncovering the story of césar román' on netflix, about an acclaimed spanish chef who was convicted of a grisly murder, stream it or skip it: ‘eileen’ on hulu, a dark, sexy noir-thriller starring anne hathaway and thomasin mckenzie, stream it or skip it: ‘the ministry of ungentlemanly warfare’ on vod, in which guy ritchie directs a fictional spin on a real-life wwii era secret spy mission.

It’s pretty much Halloween season, which means Netflix is dropping palletfuls of chillers and thrillers into their bottomless content pit. Case in point, Intrusion , director Adam Salky’s ( I Smile Back ) psychological home-invasion-slash-nuptial-drama starring Freida Pinto and Logan Marshall-Green. “Freida Pinto,” I can hear you thinking to yourself, “I like her!” Me too. But it may take more than her charismatic presence to save this movie from Netflix’s ever-growing scrap heap of vaguely Hitchcockian generica.

INTRUSION : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Meet Meera (Pinto). You’ll like her: She’s a youth counselor who survived a cancer scare. We meet her as she jogs through the New Mexico scrub desert, then returns to her gigantically sprawling ultramodern home that looks like someone dropped a fancy new orthodontist’s office complex way, way out in the middle of Roadrunner-and-Coyote country. She showers off and thinks she may feel a lump beneath her breast, but the doctor confirms it’s just some residual scar tissue. We feel relieved, because Meera seems like a perfectly nice human being who doesn’t deserve to suffer.

Meet Henry (Marshall-Green). You’ll hate him: He’s Meera’s husband. He’s an architect who designed the living crap out of their home, with the type of harsh, sharp-angle, museum aesthetic that has us wondering if they sleep on a concrete slab. (Note: They don’t. It’s a regular mattress with a nice, cushy duvet on it.) By the look of the place, he’s quite successful at architecting — I mean, they can AFFORD things. Henry is a little clenched in the teeth and a little uptight in the butthole, but he says all the perfect things to Meera, like how much he loves her and supports her and if the cancer has returned, he’s here for her, 100 percent, unbudgingly faithful, emotionally and physically. He Brylcreems the crap outta his hair and wears big glasses and hearing him speak and seeing the way he carries himself is so very Henry, portrait of a serial killer.

They’ve been living in the sharp-cornered manse for only two months after moving from Boston, hoping to get away from the bustle; a housewarming party is in the works, and if you’re considering a gift, I recommend some of those child-friendly stick-on bumpers for the countertops, so nobody runs into one and severs an artery. They go out on a date and come home to find the place ransacked. She’s spooked, but he’s calm. The cops come and a cowboy-hatted detective (Robert John Burke) prods Henry about why such a fancy-ass place has rattly plumbing and no security system. NO REASON, OFFICER DETECTIVE SIR, THERE’S NO WAY HENRY IS HIDING SOMETHING, I MEAN WHAT HAS HE GOT TO HIDE? NOTHING HA HA HA NOTHING AT ALL.

Then another break-in occurs, except they’re home this time. Henry pulls a pistol from a Ziploc hidden in a houseplant as Meera’s jaw drops. And then he drops the intruders, putting a couple in the morgue and another in the ICU — just some dirty blue-collar guys from the trailer park over yonder — and he seems perfectly fine with it the next day. Time to clean up the blood, no biggie! Understandably, Meera’s traumatized, partly because of the [INSERT TITLE OF MOVIE HERE], and partly because she wonders if she really knows the guy who’s been her husband for a dozen years. Meanwhile — and perhaps it’s because of our objective viewpoint in comparison to her clouded subjectivity — we sure seem to know exactly who this guy is. Is it really that easy? Quoth John 3:16: NO SPOILERS.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Intrusion is kind of The Gift , Straw Dogs or Gone Girl (or, gulp, Double Jeopardy ) with a bit of Don’t Breathe or Parasite ‘s location-as-a-character aesthetic mixed in — and then made as bland and straight-faced as possible.

Performance Worth Watching: (Sees Pinto’s previous credit is Hillbilly Elegy ) Welp, maybe her next film will be good! (Sees Pinto’s next film is titled Needle in a Timestack ) WELP.

Memorable Dialogue: “What are you?”, Meera asks.

“Your husband!”, Henry replies.

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Intrusion is a flavorless title for a flavorless movie destined to blend right into the endless Netflix menu scroll. If you should happen to stumble upon Incursion and have no expectations whatsoever and give it a go, you may find yourself compelled to see it through just to feed the desire to find out what happens, even though you really don’t care about what happens, the hallmark of a movie in which the characters are puppets of the plot.

Intrusion is at the very least slickly directed, brisk of pace and therefore somewhat mindlessly watchable. Weighing it down is the screenplay, which is a collection of plot devices, convenient circumstances, coincidences, cliches and supporting players popping up out of nowhere to explain things and keep things moving lest the movie linger on a word or action for a moment and accidentally develop a character. It isn’t particularly convincing, the way everything Henry says sounds like a false alibi, or the way Meera fiddlefarts around a trailer park searching for clues about what he’s up to, and finding a couple — along with some crass stereotypes about the kind of people who live in trailer parks. Maybe it intends to say something about the class divide, but more accurately, it’s just moronic and insensitive.

Intrusion sometimes has the light whiff of an insightful domestic marital drama, wth maybe a brief thematic nod to Rebecca , but beneath that spritz of air freshener lurks an unavoidable eau de bullcrap . Intrusion telegraphs every plot development to the point where we brace ourselves for the rug to be pulled out from under us in grandiose fashion. But the twist here is, there is no twist. It’s linear and obvious and simplistic. Wrap your head around THAT one, you movie watcher you!

Our Call: SKIP IT. Intrusion is dull and unambitious. It could have been insightful or it could have been trashy, but instead it’s painfully mediocre, a vapid melange of dozens of movies that came before it. Shoulda titled it Interchangeable .

Will you stream or skip the Freida Pinto psychological thriller #Intrusion on @netflix ? #SIOSI — Decider (@decider) September 23, 2021

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba .

Stream  Intrusion on Netflix

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• User reviews

Metacritic reviews

• 60 The Guardian Benjamin Lee The Guardian Benjamin Lee The streak of perversity at Intrusion’s centre nudges it above the norm, briefly waking us up before we sleepily click on something else.
• 58 IndieWire Siddhant Adlakha IndieWire Siddhant Adlakha It’s a fun watch, to be sure; as a home invasion movie of sorts, it has a number of thrilling moments, and lead actors Freida Pinto and Logan Marshall-Green each do a stellar job with what they’re given. However, the final product also exudes trepidation about its most intriguing aesthetic and narrative elements — ideas which may have only enhanced its genre sensibilities, had the filmmakers further pursued them.
• 38 Chicago Sun-Times Richard Roeper Chicago Sun-Times Richard Roeper Intrusion is a derivative, manipulative, convoluted and dopey story that dishes up one scary movie cliché after another before careening out of control with a late plot development so insanely implausible, so far out of left field, it’s as if someone accidentally deleted 20 pages of the script during production and nobody noticed.
• 38 RogerEbert.com Nick Allen RogerEbert.com Nick Allen There are simply too many moments here in which the characters, who we are supposed to care about in some form, are conveniently dumb.
• 30 The New York Times Calum Marsh The New York Times Calum Marsh It’s an exercise in watching someone have the world’s slowest revelation.
• See all 5 reviews on Metacritic.com
• See all external reviews for Intrusion

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'Intrusion' Review: You'll barely even notice

Adam salky's 'intrusion' stars freida pinto and logan marshall-green as a couple rebuilding after their home invasion trauma..

What to Watch Verdict

'Intrusion' is a forgettably derivative home invasion thriller that, to quote a famous Springfield resident, will make you feel nothin' at all.

🕰️ Logan Marshall-Green and Freida Pinto try to escape their poorly written confines.

🕰️ Cleanly shot.

🕰️ Is definitely a movie.

🕰️ Boringly generic, all caps.

🕰️ Lacks any real suspense.

🕰️ Same goes for thrills.

I wouldn't be shocked to learn Netflix purchased Adam Salky's Intrusion as a last-minute Halloween acquisition from Lifetime. Writer Chris Sparling isn't functioning on levels of horrific intrigue as proven in titles like ATM or The Atticus Institute and lacks even a grain of tension found in Buried . Maybe that falls on Salky's failure to ensure the narrative mysteriousness throughout Intrusion remains an actual mystery, as even kindergarten detectives will have this case pinned in a matter of seconds. That's the Lifetime element mentioned above—any genre regard is schmaltzy, overproduced, and insufficiently subtle to the point of disappointment. A glaring issue made even more prominent by an exasperating lack of spooky-seasonal scares.

Freida Pinto and Logan Marshall-Green star as a couple who endure the trauma of a home invasion and rebound on separate terms. Meera (Pinto) can't quarter potatoes without her hands trembling; Henry (Marshall-Green) insists on throwing their housewarming party despite the violent break-in. Detective Stephen Morse (Robert John Burke) records their statements and, before leaving, drops a bombshell—a missing teenager (Megan Elisabeth Kelly as Christine Cobb) is bonded by namesake to their aggressors, which connects dots that Meera can't shake. Could smashed living room furniture and new security systems be collateral effects of something far more disturbing?

The answer, recognizably, is yes. Intrusion weighs heavy Henry's button-up, model "nice guy" husband in early glimpses where Marshall-Green dons a more kempt Poindexter appeal, furthered by Meera's past cancer battle and how Henry romantically never fled his ailing partner. Salky doesn't use the home invasion as a featured conflict like in The Strangers or Trespass . What's over in a flash sends ripple effects through picture-perfect Hallmark lives, which flatly level sans waves of revelations or chilling exposures. Everything Meera observes, senses, and questions couldn't be more blatantly obvious in a film that's as competently lukewarm as your timid neighbor's debut true-crime podcast.

Beat by beat, Intrusion unremarkably stokes Meera's justified paranoias with the most underwhelming suspense milestones. Henry's reaction to making Meera feel safe after the criminality is to install app-controlled locks and smartphone tracking software; cue Meera ignoring his GPS tracker, so she gets caught sleuthing. All Henry's past destinations are programmed into his SUV dashboard; Meera drives to a rust-bucket trailer park where she locates incriminating camcorder evidence. All roads lead towards inevitably as Salky's methods run through motions versus gain momentum, generating paltry levels of mania in otherwise dangerously sociopathic insinuations. That's not to blame Pinto for her bargain-bin character's shortcomings or the stale production's unenthusiastic approach to physical and emotional abuse—it's just the entire experience remains so unfazed by its own alarming actions.

That's the glaring frustration point of Intrusion —it's not a movie without purpose. Henry manipulatively insists that unwavering allyship and comfort throughout Meera's illness is to be repaid; guilt plagues Meera's conscience even though she's able to guide her psychiatric patients away from such strangleholds. Marshall-Green struggles to digest what should be a meatier, "good guy or secret psycho" chameleon whose attempts at unsettling and dissuading blame are flubbed by off-camera directions that are certainly less Jekyll and Hyde than hoped (whichever is his true identity). Even consider Robert John Burke's usage, a cowboy lawman who's immediate to side-eye Marshall-Green's calmly composed homeowner without a second's hesitation or necessary buildup.

Intrusion is as sanitized and mediocre as housebound thrillers come between polished architectural cinematography and dreadfully dreadless home-invasion-adjacent ambitions. Freida Pinto and Logan Marshall-Green are victims of circumstance, caught portraying characters whose unpredictability is increasingly predictable. It's the vanilla wafer of thrillers, with just enough flavor except dry as hell and never the star of whatever feast it's thrown into as an afterthought. A film that should be vastly more diabolical and delusionally paced than its final formulation, and yet barely registers a yelp or shudder as the whole flaccid ordeal flops around until the credits wipe our minds clean.

You can watch Intrusion on Netflix when it premieres on September 22, 2021

Matt Donato is a Rotten Tomatoes approved film critic who stays up too late typing words for What To Watch, IGN, Paste, Bloody Disgusting, Fangoria and countless other publications. He is a member of Critics Choice and co-hosts a weekly livestream with Perri Nemiroff called the Merri Hour. You probably shouldn't feed him after midnight, just to be safe.

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In November 1987, two stations in Chicago, Illinois were hijacked. During the sports portion of the news on WGN that evening, the signal suddenly switched to a person wearing a Max Headroom mask with a swiveling panel behind the figure and distorted audio. Two hours later, it happened again on PBS during a showing of “Doctor Who.” This one was longer and included soundbites that could be made out and even ended with a butt shot. No one was ever caught. It wasn’t the first time—there’s a famous one from a business owner named Captain Midnight from 1986 and the notorious Southern Television broadcast interruption in England in the late ‘70s—but it feels like the event that most inspired Jacob Gentry ’s “Broadcast Signal Intrusion,” which uses the concept to tell a story about paranoia and that nagging sense when you’re just one revelation from putting together what everyone else seems to have stopped trying to figure out.

Harry Shum Jr. plays James, a video archivist in Chicago in 1999 who stumbles upon a recording of a BSI that features a figure in a strange, slightly terrifying white mask. He instantly (too instantly, really) becomes obsessed with learning more, soon finding a recording of a second BSI and hearing rumors of a third. It’s not long before James is meeting shadowy figures in parking garages and alleys, getting clues about the origin of the intrusions and what they might mean. It turns out that the dates of the intrusions line up a little too neatly with those of missing women, and, of course, James has an emotional connection because the rumored third intrusion happened right around the time his wife Hannah disappeared.

Phil Drinkwater and Tim Woodall ’s script was very clearly inspired by conspiracy films of the ‘70s and ‘80s like “ The Parallax View ” and “ Blow Out ,” films with protagonists who become obsessed with the idea that they are just one clue away from solving everything . With increasing concerns over the power of tech, the disintegration of piracy, and the general distrust of government, it seems like a perfect time for a resurgence of the large scale paranoia thriller, and “Broadcast Signal Intrusion” could eventually look like the start of that subgenre’s return with hindsight. Paranoia certainly hasn’t gone away since the ‘70s—it’s just gone online.

An interesting yet underdeveloped component to this particular paranoia thriller is the grief that drives James as much as his curiosity. Whereas most people might investigate these intrusions with the fascination of a true crime podcast fan, James instantly suspects a connection to his trauma, and Shum is capable of conveying the way that grief can impact perception. If anything, it feels like Gentry should have played this angle up—although he was likely concerned about turning “Broadcast Signal Intrusion” into a “missing wife” story—as Shum seems to want to give the project an urgency that it too often lacks. It all leads to a frustrating push and pull between a film and its leading man.

It’s also not long before it feels like the rabbit hole that Gentry is following James down is pretty shallow. It’s a film with echoes of recent horror movies about obsession like “Berberian Sound Studio” and “ Censor ” but those movies, despite their flaws, felt far more legitimately dangerous and fearless than “BSI,” which is content to maintain a slow buzz of paranoia for longer than it should. The stakes aren't there, which is fine for the set-up, but not for the follow-through. It’s a movie that needs to just go off the rails at a certain point and arguably doesn’t do so until the disappointing final scene, when it almost feels like a different film is just beginning. Maybe that’s the point. The Chicago intrusions never really added up to much either.

Now playing in theaters and available on digital platforms.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Film credits.

Broadcast Signal Intrusion (2021)

104 minutes

Harry Shum Jr. as James

Kelley Mack as Alice

Chris Sullivan as Phreaker

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Intrusion ending & twist explained: every unanswered question.

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Netflix ’s Intrusion is the latest in a string of domestic thrillers to become popular on the streaming service, but what is the movie’s big twist—and does it all add up? 2021 has been a stellar year for psychological thrillers. The domestic thriller, in particular. is undergoing something of a revival as a new miniseries or movie crops up every few weeks featuring marriages built on lies, affairs leading to murder, and other staples of the potboiler sub-genre.

Recently, Netflix’s wild  Clickbait featured a faintly ludicrous twist ending that re-contextualized the entire series, and now Intrusion has managed to outdo even that goofy thriller. Starring Freida Pinto as Meera, a woman moving into her dream home with her dream husband Henry while in remission from breast cancer, Intrusion is a wild ride filled with deception, death, and sex. Naturally, Intrusion comes with a twist ending, but as if often the case with domestic thrillers, it is not one that necessarily makes much sense on a rewatch.

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When Intrusion begins, Meera and Henry are a blissfully happy couple moving into their new home (designed by Henry himself). Soon, two men break into their abode and Henry kills one, hospitalizing the other. This sets in motion the thriller’s twist ending , as Meera begins to question Henry’s nonplussed reaction to the break-in and unravels a complex web of lies.

What Happens In Intrusion's Ending

Meera follows her husband when he claims he’s running an errand, only for him to secretly visit the hospital. Meera soon discovers that the second man who broke into her house died in hospital, sparking her suspicion. She visits his house and learns he is Dylan Cobb, father of missing girl Christine. When Meera confronts Henry about this, he claims Dylan was a contractor who extorted him for more money and broke in when he refused to pay. However, Meera later watches footage that Dylan recorded for the police wherein he claims Henry is a danger to his daughter. This prompts Meera to snoop around Henry’s office, where she discovers Christine chained up in a secret room.

Is Henry Really Dead In Intrusion?

Meera knocks Henry over the head after Intrusion ’s twist ending is revealed , apparently killing him with immediate effect. However, some viewers struggled to believe that this one quick blow alone would be enough to kill him instantly, and it may be more likely that Henry is simply just temporarily unconscious. Still, this would buy Meera enough time to free Christine and alert the authorities, meaning the question of whether or not Henry is definitively dead is not necessarily one of paramount importance, since he does not return to attack his wife or captive in a last-second surprise.

Intrusion's Twist Ending: Does Henry's Reveal Work?

The revelation that Henry has been the villain all along does work as the thriller’s big M Night Shyamalan-esque plot twist —if anything, the twist may work too well, as Henry's potential to be the antagonist makes so much sense that many canny viewers will have worked out the surprise long before his wife manages to piece it together during the climax. There are not too many red herrings on offer during Intrusion ’s action (more on that later), meaning the killer almost has to be Henry. Meanwhile, the mounting evidence pointing toward him means that, by the time Meera finds a flash drive full of incriminating evidence in act two, it would be more of a twist to find out Henry wasn’t the guilty party.

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Could Any Other Character Have Been Intrusion's Villain?

Before the twist ending of Intrusion , viewers could conceivably believe that Christine’s father Dylan was the one who killed/kidnapped her. The fact that he left a message for the police, that he broke into Henry’s house, and Henry claimed the laborer was extorting him all add up to a damning portrait. However, Intrusion never pushes the idea that Dylan was responsible for his daughter’s disappearance too hard, with the movie’s main misdirection being a much more obvious red herring.

Who Was The Man At Dylan’s Trailer Park?

When Meera does some investigating and heads to Dylan’s trailer park home to search for clues, she encounters an unhinged and paranoid man who threatens her. This unidentified man takes Dylan’s video camera (which, Promising Young Woman -style, was addressed to the police and contained vital evidence in case Dylan died before returning home) from Meera and destroys it before telling her to leave. Later in the movie, the character is arrested, which Meera assumes is in connection with Christine’s disappearance. So, who is he? Ultimately, Intrusion never explains who this man was, and it is pretty obvious once Henry’s villainy is revealed that the threatening trailer park character is a red herring designed to throw viewers off Henry's scent.

How Henry's Villain Turn Was Teased Throughout Intrusion

Initially, the fact that Henry is unfazed by killing a man during a home invasion is the first clue that something is off about Meera’s husband. While she’s not surprised that he handled the dangerous situation, the fact that Henry dismisses the death tells Meera that he isn’t entirely normal. The extent of Henry’s evil is not clear until the ending explains that he kidnapped Christine,  but the fact that he lied to his wife before visiting the hospital is another clue to his duplicity. Similarly, the gun that Henry uses to kill the intruder is one his wife didn’t know existed—meaning further lies and deceit would not be a surprise, even if the nature of Henry’s secret is a lot darker than just a hidden weapon.

What Is Intrusion’s Real Meaning?

Like so many movies in the domestic thriller sub-genre, Intrusion’ s trashy exterior belies a pretty compelling central message. The movie’s ending warns viewers to never allow love to blind them to the reality of what their partner is capable of. Meera’s reticence to come to terms with Henry’s evil extends Christine’s ordeal and contributes to the death of Dylan, much like the killer twist ending of What Lies Below  relies on that earlier domestic thriller’s heroine opting not to think the worst about her mother’s new paramour for the plot's twisted machinations to make sense. Ultimately, Intrusion serves as a grim warning that often the most dangerous threats can come from inside one’s own home.

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