Review: The Invite – Wilde marriage woes
Directed by Olivia Wilde
Starring Seth Rogen, Olivia Wilde, Edward Norton, Penelope Cruz
8.5/10
The Invite is one of those things which cinemas are made for. Not for spectacular scenes of epic visual wonder or earth-trembling sounds (although those are nice), but rather for the experience of being part of an audience—one experiencing an ever-increasing intensity of laughter. Director Olivia Wilde’s already proved an ability to generate belly laughs in one hand with heartfelt moments of vulnerability in the other with her directorial debut Booksmart, and so she seems perfectly chosen to deliver this wonderful English-language remake of Cesc Gay’s Sentimental, aka The People Upstairs.
Husband Joe (Seth Rogen) comes home one night to his wife, Angela (Olivia Wilde), who is frantically preparing dinner for their upstairs neighbours, Pina (Penelope Cruz) and her partner Hawk (Edward Norton). Angela, clearly enamoured with Pina and wanting to impress her, has neglected to inform her husband of the arrangement. His exhaustion, social introversion, and lack of filter for his contempt for the upstairs couple’s new-age ways set up the rest of the film for some incredible laughs when combined with the unravelling of their beleaguered relationship in front of this seemingly perfect couple, especially when the intentions of the upstairs couple are tentatively revealed.
It becomes clear very quickly that this film has its roots in a single-setting play, and when the couple, Joe and Angela, begin bickering over the arrival of the imminent dinner guests from the apartment upstairs, there’s a great feeling of both characters being trapped in this setting with no escape. Luckily, this isn’t some kind of devastating Revolutionary Road style of conflict—Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogen have great chemistry in their dysfunction, and their ever-sinking anxiety, embarrassment, and vulnerability are charming as hell to observe from the safety of our side of the silver screen.
Rashida Jones and Will McCormack’s screenplay delivers some wildly entertaining dialogue tennis, which Rogen and Wilde are more than equipped to yield with great comedic prowess, and even better, it’s so engaging because it’s generously rooted in a deep honesty about human relationships and behaviour. Some of Joe’s lines feel like they could have come from nowhere else but the thin air of the moment, ensnared by the inspired grasp of Rogen’s brain conditioned to find every opportunity for a laugh. The back and forth feels funny but grounded and natural, with no jokes artificially punctuated for emphasis.
Comedies such as this often have a bad habit of outstaying their welcome, narratively painting themselves into a corner or, worse, aiming for a climax which is too silly to hold the weight of it all. It digs deep and finds something real to contemplate, even if that means parking the chuckles for a while. The fact is that by the time we reach its conclusion, The Invite seems to have earned the right to sit down and work out where it wants to leave you without going out with a cheap laugh, showing a refreshing serve of discipline and restraint instead, which is very welcome.
JOHN HOLDCROFT