The Invite

 The Invite, Olivia Wilde’s third film as a director, is the fifth remake in six years of Cesc Gay’s motion picture, Sentimental (aka The People Upstairs), which was based on his stage play The Upstairs Neighbors. How does it fare this time? How does it fare at all?

Joe (Seth Rogen) and Angela (Wilde) have a lot to talk about. He’s a former musician and current music professor, while she’s an art major and stay-at-home mom. With their daughter away at a sleepover, Angela sets up a dinner party with an upstairs couple, Hawk (Edward Norton) and Pina (Penelope Cruz), who have kept Joe up all night with their nightly activities. During the fateful dinner party, the other couple invite their neighbors to join in. It’s delightfully weird, until Joe & Angela’s marital troubles boil over. I think that’s it.

Oh man, Will McCormick & Rashida Jones’s screenplay is loquacious. It seems like barely a second goes by without the characters saying something. More often than not, all that crosstalk is as hilariously awkward as the evening’s events, which include a burnt souffle, which Angela casually throws away, and a wasted charcuterie. It barely lets up when it goes from farcical to psychological. While the film only credits Sentimental as its source, its wordiness, it only being set in Joe & Angela’s apartment, and its small cast give away its stage origins. Silence does speak a few notable times, including the ambiguous finale, but they’re still accompanied by Dev Hynes’s moody score.

Throughout the evening, your sympathies might shift a lot amongst Joe & Angela. Sometimes, you'll like Joe as he deals with his bad back and Angela's sudden dinner party (that she claimed she told him about months in advance). Later on, you'll also hate him after he makes a repulsively entitled outburst at Angela (and sympathize with her). Their negatives and positives balance each other out. By the end, even after they & Pina conclude that their marriage is unsalvageable, you'll still hope that they might. Pina is not only fun and energetic, but as a therapist, she is also the voice of reason Joe & Angela sorely needed. Hawk is a cool guy, despite him being unintentionally condescending, and you'll definitely feel for his sad backstory. They present themselves a perfect couple, but you'll eventually learn that's not the case. Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night.

When Hawk & Pina arrive, it's in the middle of an argument between their hosts. Hawk assures them, despite the awkward introduction, that "we love a contentious environment." Well, if you love an environment filled with the wittiest double couples' therapy since Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, take The Invite to your local cinema. It's quite worth it.

Yeah, it's a surprising conclusion, but between its dysfunctional couples and the dysfunctional family who features in my next review, you might enjoy the couples better.