Directed By: Olivia Wilde
Written By: Rashida Jones & Will McCormack
Based on the Motion Picture “SENTIMENTAL” By: Cesc Gay
Cinematography: Adam Newport-Berra
Editor: Anthony Boys and Yorgos Mavropsaridis
Cast: Olivia Wilde, Penelope Cruz, Seth Rogen, Edward Norton
Joe and Angela’s marriage is on thin ice. When they invite their enigmatic upstairs neighbors for a dinner party, the night spirals into unexpected places.
This movie reminded me of something rather embarrassing. I have never been to a dinner party.
I’ve always wanted to be invited to one. Maybe one day, if I ever have a place of my own, I’ll throw one myself. Until then, all I really know about dinner parties comes from movies, television, and books. If they’re anything like this one… sign me up. Hopefully just with slightly less emotional damage.
This feels like a genuine comeback for Olivia Wilde as a director. It reminds you just how talented she is when she’s focused less on genre and spectacle, and more on people. Relationships, insecurities, attraction, jealousy, longing, you know those messy little emotions that make us human.
The film is a loving throwback to the intimate relationship dramas that flourished from the 1960s through the 1980s. You can immediately feel the DNA of WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOLFE and BOB & CAROL & TED & ALICE. It’s refreshing to see a movie made for adults that lets conversations become the action.
The smartest thing the film does is invite you into the story without revealing its hand. Whether you know the premise or go in completely blind, you’re pulled in by the seductive setup and the chemistry between the characters. As the evening unfolds, what begins as playful curiosity slowly transforms into something heavier, more emotionally revealing, and surprisingly tense. Yet the film always keeps a sense of humor tucked away in its back pocket.
Every actor is working at the top of their game, and each performance is an essential ingredient in what makes the film work.
Olivia Wilde is especially impressive, both behind and in front of the camera. She plays the anxious, seemingly ordinary half of a married couple stuck in a comfortable rut with Seth Rogen. It’s fascinating watching the dynamic evolve. To each other they’ve become familiar, almost invisible. But through someone else’s eyes, they suddenly become attractive again. The film cleverly explores how desire and perception change depending on who’s looking.
The entire movie feels like a beautifully staged play. I honestly assumed it was an original screenplay because it feels so confident and distinct. Finding out it’s actually adapted from a foreign film that’s already been remade several times was surprising. Even so, this version feels completely fresh and confidently stands on its own.
It’s bold without trying too hard. Provocative without becoming cynical. Underneath all the awkwardness, emotional chaos, and uncomfortable conversations is an oddly wholesome innocence about people simply wanting to reconnect with themselves, their partners, and the lives they’ve built.
At times the film almost plays like an emotional thriller. There isn’t a killer hiding in the house, just vulnerability, desire, regret, and the fear of saying the quiet part out loud. Somehow that’s even more suspenseful.
Even the soundtrack echoes the films that inspired it. It captures that sophisticated, simmering mood where something has been bubbling beneath the surface all evening, and you’re simply waiting for it to finally boil over.
The Invite is funny, sexy, awkward, revealing, and emotionally honest. It’s the kind of intelligent adult drama Hollywood used to make all the time and one I hope becomes fashionable again.
Grade: A
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