The Invite
After struggling up San Francisco hills on the folding bike his wife Angela (Olivia Wilde) insisted would help his bad back, Joe (Seth Rogen) just wants a quiet night at home, so he isn't at all happy when he finds Angela in the midst of major preparations for a dinner party with the neighbors upstairs that he has serious issues with. He also claims she never told him about "The Invite."
Laura's Review: A-
Working with a bitingly funny screenplay by "Celeste & Jesse Forever's" Will McCormack & Rashida Jones and a perfectly cast ensemble which includes herself, director Olivia Wilde ("Booksmart," "Don't Worry Darling") delivers her best film to date about how a disastrous dinner date may just save a marriage. Except for a brief prologue featuring Joe's commute home and Angela shopping for her party, the combined efforts of the script, production designer Jade Healy ("A Ghost Story," "I, Tonya") and cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra ("Good Fortune") keep the single setting visually and thematically engaging, using mirrors, windows and doorways to frame and reflect.
It doesn't take long after Joe's returned home that the couple begin arguing, Joe asking that plans he was unaware of be cancelled and questioning the cost of a new rug. Angela, about to pop a soufflé in the oven, has laid out an elaborate spread of expensive meats and cheeses, but slaps her husband's hand away from sampling. She's horrified when Joe states that if the neighbors come, he intends to address their exuberant sex life, one which keeps he and Angela awake at night while Angela is obviously impressed with the woman's intense orgasms they've been hearing. Then Hawk (Edward Norton) and the stunning Piña (Penélope Cruz playing a character based on Wilde's own therapist, Esther Perel, the author of 'Mating in Captivity') arrive bearing Piña's famous flan and it's clear they've heard Joe and Amanda arguing from outside their door.
Each of these four characters are representative of relatable types. Joe is full of angry resentment, considering himself a failure, a man who once had a record contract and minor hit now teaching at a second rate music academy. Angela, sporting a carefully curated Boho look, lacks self confidence and is looking for affirmation, something Hawk provides in spades, complimenting all of her design choices, especially that new rug, which he says is a Heriz and she says she found at a flea market, perhaps to allay Joe's remarks about its cost. Hawk appears amused by Joe's discomfort, complimenting him on 'honesty' which is overt hostility. Piña is warm and sensual and, we will learn, a sex therapist with what some might consider radical views, an expertise which becomes focal as the night progresses.
The air of animosity which pervaded Angela and Joe's apartment before their guests arrived turns into nervous energy when its occupants double, Angela's attempt to compensate for Joe's failure to procure wine on the way home leading to multiple embarrassments. The arrival of Piña's flan causes Angela to dump her (now burned) soufflé right into the trash, a movie cliche which I loathe, but one which works here to underline her insecurities. Joe's time out to smoke a joint draws Piña's interest, something he takes advantage of to flout Angela's rules about smoking inside, inviting Piña into his study while Angela gives Hawk a tour, setting up the couple's swap we intuit will be suggested, Joe and Piña sharing their tattoos. Meanwhile Hawk settles Angela's bedroom paint sample conundrum, then insists he merely voiced what she'd already decided, encouraging behavior we will learn has evolved from painful truths in his past. The dynamics are intense, possible manipulative and entirely true to life. They are also hilarious, Seth Rogan getting the majority of the laughs and delivering them with expert timing.
"The Invite" may just boast the ensemble of the year, these performances are so pitch perfect. Wilde stages everything expertly, reconfiguring her small cast in various ways about the apartment, her tale continually zigging when we expect it to zag. While the sexual aspect of the evening goes to surprising places, it doesn't go where we expect, wrapped by Piña going into therapist mode and delivering a very sobering analysis of her hosts. And even then, after they've gone, things take a surprising turn. McCormack and Jones based their script on a 2020 Spanish film by Cesc Gay, but have hit on universal truths sprinkled with a dash of San Franciscan hedonism. The fraught atmosphere is expressed by the jagged, downward swirling violins of Devonté Hynes' score, but in the end, it is his simple piano tune that you might take out with you.
A24 releases "The Invite" in select theaters on 6/26/26, platforming over the following two weeks.
