THE INVITE (2026)

 

After reading a very positive review of this film, I found myself compelled to shake off the cobwebs and once again venture out to my local multiplex to lay down some cash for the struggling film industry. This was my first trip to a theater since seeing BACKROOMS a few months ago. BACKROOMS is an incredible film, one which I definitely want to see again before it leaves the theater. But if I were to attempt to write about it, I'm afraid my brain would explode. I'll leave that existential masterpiece to the folks who understand existentialism and have less fragile brains.

THE INVITE is classified as a comedy, and the review I read compared it to WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (1966). I agree with both descriptions, and I think that George and Martha would definitely get more than a few laughs out of this new film. Of course, they also might be slightly jealous over the uncensored language they weren't allowed to use in the ancient world of 1966.

The storyline is rather uncomplicated. An unhappy married couple, Joe and Angela (Seth Rogen and Olivia Wilde), invite their upstairs neighbors, Hawk and Pina (Edward Norton and Penelope Cruz) to their apartment for dinner. We get a few details about the lives of our host couple in the first part of the movie: Joe used to be a musician in a band that had one hit and then broke up. He now teaches music at a school in San Francisco. He and Angela inherited their apartment from Joe's family, and the couple have a twelve-year-old daughter. Joe has back trouble and feels he has failed in life. Angela doesn't work and is obsessive about decorating and spending too much money. Their marriage is a mess. They bicker. Incessantly.

Details regarding the lives of Hawk and Pina don't come forth until later in the movie. At first, we only learn that they are relatively new neighbors, Joe finds them irritating, and he and Angela are forced to listen to their loud, aggressive sex life at three in the morning, because their bedrooms are right on top of each other. Joe wants to bring the subject up and ask them to tone it down a little, but Angela is actually intrigued by what appears to be Pina's obvious enjoyment of her nocturnal activities.

What ensues after Hawk and Pina arrive is much too good to give away with spoilers. I would hate to cheat anyone of the exchanges of dialogue, the awkwardness between these two very different married couples, or the surprises that come forth as they begin to relax (sort of) and get to know each other. I will say, however, that any similarity to VIRGINIA WOOLF soon goes right out the window. This isn't about a psychologically damaged older couple spending a torturous night with a doomed younger couple, with a devastating secret revealed at the end. In this film, we have a couple coming to the end of a marriage and encountering another couple with an entirely different approach to relationships and sex. The script is a hot mix of satire and painful truth, much of it spoken fast and furiously by these four talented actors. And the ending? Forget it; I ain't talking.

Olivia Wilde directed the film, and the excellent screenplay was written by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones. All things considered, this was another positive movie-going experience. I think I'm getting spoiled. Very highly recommended!