The Invite is a triumph in precision that threads the needle between the absurd and the awkward with poignant, comic grace. Although it’s a confined location film, set over the course of “one wild night,” Olivia Wilde’s latest directorial effort doesn’t resemble a turgid stage production. The constraints put on the story force Wilde to be more creative as a filmmaker because The Invite is about raunchiness that isn’t particularly explicit. There are plenty of memorable one-liners, but a great comedy isn’t judged on how many zingers it gets in. The Invite is able to evoke feelings of sadness and regret without sacrificing its energy.
Loosely based on the Spanish film The People Upstairs, The Invite stars Wilde and Seth Rogen as Joe and Angela, a somewhat unhappily married couple who live in San Francisco with a young daughter. While their quarrels aren’t mean-spirited, Joe and Angela are depressed about their respective careers, and take out their frustrations on each other. After a particularly challenging day, Joe returns to the apartment to discover that Angela is preparing a shared meal with their neighbors, Pina (Penelope Cruz) and Hawk (Edward Norton), who they’ve been trying to impress. The couples have very different lifestyles, but the gap between them is made more apparent over the course of an unpredictable night in which secrets pour out.
The Invite is sparing with its pacing, and there’s not a wasted moment of exposition in the opening moments before Joe and Angela are at each other’s throats. While their marriage is strained, there’s still enough mutual respect to suggest it could be salvaged, and that a friendly encounter with another couple might delay the next shouting match. The glimpse into the vain, temperamental arguments that brew between them is just enough to reveal dissatisfaction, but The Invite quickly forces Joe and Angela to put up a facade when Pina and Hawk arrive. It’s a humorous inversion because the cooler, free-spirited neighbors are honest to a fault, and casually reveal the type of intimate details that Joe and Angela would never bring up independently.
The most obvious comparison is with Who’s Afraid of Virgina Woolf?, the Mike Nichols classic. The difference is that Nichols explored the faded idealism between generations, whereas Wilde is interested in how two couples of the same approximate age. However, The Invite isn’t a traditional bait-and-switch reversal where the couples take the opposite takeaways from each other; even if Pina and Hawks’ marriage is revealed to have some latent friction within it, revelations about their communication don’t automatically ensure that Joe and Angela feel better about their own.
The Invite is Wilde’s third film as a director, and it’s by far her most impressive achievement. Wilde’s debut, Booksmart, was frequently funny, but became so reliant on declarative statements from its archetypal characters that the attempts at profundity felt weightless; conversely, Wilde’s disastrous second feature, Don’t Worry Darling, was so ambitious on a narrative level that its intellectual goals fell to the wayside. The Invite has far more confidence in its actors to develop characteristics.
Wilde’s performance is not only the best of her career, but also a piece of self-awareness because she took the most low-key role for herself. Angela has placed such significance upon this specific evening that her priorities are inevitably questioned, given that motherhood alone has not made her feel accomplished. Wilde’s sympathetic to Angela, who’s refreshingly not treated as repulsive for wanting to be loved, but she’s also willing to make her the stick-in-the-mud compared to the other three characters. The casting of Rogen is also smart because Joe’s the opposite of the carefree man-children he played in Knocked Up, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and Pineapple Express. Rogen’s able to conjure a bitter, impulsively argumentative persona within a character who’s forced to settle over and over again.
The chemistry between Wilde and Rogen is good enough that their counterparts could’ve been one-note caricatures, but Cruz and Norton are engaged in self-reflective roles that are more impressive when considering their respective career arcs. Cruz has been fetishized by various American filmmakers as an exotic beauty, and Pina has hidden regret within how the facets of her personality have been dismissed as quirks. Conversely, Norton is seemingly conscious of his reputation as a “difficult” actor, and willing to play a character who can be both charismatic and overwhelming at the same time. Hawk has a monologue in the film’s final third that’s earmarked as a clip to screen if Norton’s performance is given a Best Supporting Actor nomination.