Returning from a period of exile following the headline-snatching drama surrounding the release of her sophomore feature - 2022's excellent and unfairly treated Don't Worry Darling - Olivia Wilde appears to scale things back to basics with effort number three: The Invite. A remake of the Spanish-language film, The People Upstairs, with its screenplay adapted by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack, there is an old-fashioned quality to The Invite, which takes four characters with varying interpersonal dynamics, places them in a single location and injects an element of mystery into proceedings -- but is this one you should rush to RSVP for?
Joe (Seth Rogen) returns home to find his wife Angela (Wilde) preparing their apartment for a visit from the neighbours upstairs, the enigmatic Pina (Penelope Cruz) and Hawk (Edward Norton). But as the dinner party gets underway, and both true intentions and underlying hostility come racing to the surface, not everyone's relationship is likely to survive the night.
In what will surely go down as one of the year's very best pictures, Olivia Wilde's The Invite is a superbly compelling, blisteringly entertaining and surprisingly thoughtful feature that represents the sort of old-school, traditional adult filmmaking that once thrived in Hollywood’s ecosystem. A theatrical experience so simple in its conceit - one location, four characters - yet thematically progressive and tonally sharp, The Invite has everything you could possibly want for a grown-up time at the pictures. Remarkably fresh and nostalgically reminiscent, The Inivite audiences with the type of releases they supposedly yearn for.
Rashida Jones and Will McCormack’s screenplay is a real masterclass in dialogue and character, taking four distinct personalities and rendering them with such depth and detail that feels truly authentic. The dialogue sizzles, both scathing and hilarious in equal measures, and packed to the rafters with well-observed mediations on love, marriage, spousal understanding and marital sacrifices. That after an hour of hilarity, shock and surprise it can land on something profound and introspective so naturally takes real storytelling skill, something often overlooked and under appreciated in the sub-genre. If the streaming era is swallowing the spirit of the studio comedy, the triumphant talents of Jones and McCormack are a major rebuttal to its demise.
If there is any uncertainty in Olivia Wilde’s credibility as a director, The Invite should quell those concerns entirely: she directs The Invite for all it is worth. With not so much as a second wasted, The Invite zips by at a rolicking pace, with Wilde exercising a razor-sharp control of tone and balance of character that demonstrates an artist who knows the material inside and out. At any given moment, she knows exactly which button to push -- from the awkward discomfort to the belly laugh, the thrilling surprise to the movingly resonant, The Invite is a film of careful calibration and with Wilde at the reigns it absolutely thrives; particularly in comparison to the original Spanish film, Wilde imbues an auteur quality that enriches it into something genuinely sophisticated, achieved in conjunction with her editing team - Anthony Boys and Yorgos Mavropsaridis. Her insistence in shooting on film provide the film with a deservingly timeless quality and her enthusiasm in ensuring the film secured a theatrical release reminds the naysayers that the communial joy of comedy does indeed belong on the big screen.
So many of the production elements here work perfectly, again a reflection of Wilde's unifying vision for the film, but it is Devonté Hynes' contribution that is the cherry on top for the film. His score slashes through the drama as a character in its own right, disrupting the facade of peace with its strings-a-plenty by maximising its discomfort, acting as a brilliant catalyst to the ebbing and flowing drama unfolding in front of our very eyes. It is one of the year’s most accomplished compositions, and so brilliantly used throughout that it becomes key to its overall success.
Our acting quartet are a treat to bear witness to, with each of the four actors turning in what could be genuinely considered career-best work. None of Wilde’s other duties impact her work in front of the camera, and as Angela she portrays a character spinning frantically to keep her head above water as her anxieties threaten to swallow her up - a rather ironic notion given just how seamlessly she appears to control this production. Her eye work is, in particular, excellent, desperately darting around begging to land on something to steady her, brilliantly demonstrating the depths of which she understands her character.
Rogen is, of course, a funny man, and gets more than a few laughs here, but the comedy is used so well that is never risks descending into a glorified standup routine for Rogen, and his dramatic work is pitch-perfect. Crucially, although this is a comedy, no one is specifically playing this for laughs -- instead, it feels like an accurate response to the awkwardness that comes from these personality types in this setting, and that in itself is where the funniest moments are born from. Similarly, Edward Norton leans into playing the fool, his love of rugs and all, but Norton is not doing that to be the clown -- that's just the way Hawk has lived his life. And because of that, when Norton does manage to flip the script in a moving monologue, he delievers one of the film's most satisfying moments.
It would feel redundant to describe Penelope Cruz, arguably the most acclaimed performer of ensemble, as a revelation, particularly with a career full of such impressive work — but she really is revitalised in The Invite, as therapist and sexologist Pina. She’s confident, fiery and opinionated, with some excellent line readings and physicality that pinpoints her as the somewhat unwitting leader of the encounter. There's a magnetism to Cruz that is so undeniable as a viewer that you cannot help but be fascinated by her every action, one that she knowingly exploits with thrillingly enjoyable results.
The Invite is truly electric cinema. An exhilarating, uproariusly funny and fantastically fraught picture that accomplishes an extraordinary blend of humour, discomfort, tenderness and naughtiness, Olivia Wilde has shaped a most rewarding cinematic experience in her third effort, one that should rightly remind Hollywood of the importance of the studio comedy in its landscape. There are so many moments where The Invite could overstay its welcome, or topple over completely, but that Wilde manages to not only avoid doing so, but never once show any sign of weakness that it even threatens to destabilise is something of a miracle. With one of the finest acting quartets put to screen, a delightfully piercing screenplay and a director who proves she is here to stay, The Invite is whip-smart and a ridiculously entertaining time at the cinema.