The Invite is a funny, surprising and deeply seductive chamber piece. Directed by Olivia Wilde and written by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones, the film takes place almost entirely in a single apartment with just four cast members. It is, essentially, a film of conversation. In less capable hands it could quickly become repetitive, but The Invite never feels like a slog. Every exchange subtly shifts our understanding of its characters, peeling back another layer beneath what initially appear to be familiar relationship archetypes.
At first glance, Angela (Olivia Wilde) and Joe (Seth Rogen) seem to fit comfortably into the well-worn mould of the neurotic wife and lazy husband. Pína (Penélope Cruz) and Hawk (Edward Norton), the charismatic couple who invite them into an evening of uncomfortable honesty, similarly risk being reduced to broad stereotypes. Instead, the screenplay patiently dismantles those assumptions, revealing four people who are considerably more vulnerable and emotionally complex than they first appear.
Angela is an artist who struggled to find her footing after graduating before quickly starting a family. Having spent years as a housewife, she feels increasingly trapped by a life that has left her financially and emotionally dependent on Joe. Her need to constantly decorate and renovate their apartment stems less from vanity than from anxiety; if she cannot control the direction her life has taken, she can at least control her surroundings. Joe, meanwhile, spends his evenings shut away in a study filled with instruments he refuses to play. Once a musician, he now teaches music at a modest school, quietly mourning a career that never materialised, all while struggling to support a home that increasingly feels beyond their means. Their marriage has reached a stalemate, sustained more by nostalgia, comfort and the child they share than by love.
The same generosity extends to Hawk and Pína. Cruz is characteristically fantastic, playing a woman exploring her sexuality without allowing that curiosity to become her defining characteristic. Pína remains intelligent, emotionally perceptive and deeply empathetic throughout. Norton initially appears almost one-note in his confidence, only for that façade to gradually erode as the evening unfolds. Beneath it is a man traumatised by his years as a firefighter, struggling to find purpose after retirement and navigating a relationship that we learn began less than a year after the death of his wife. Norton gives his strongest performance in years, while Cruz once again demonstrates how effortlessly she can balance wit, vulnerability and sensuality.
That generosity towards its characters is matched by the chemistry between the entire ensemble. Wilde and Rogen are immediately, and somewhat unexpectedly, convincing as a couple who have spent years exhausting one another yet remain incapable of fully letting go. The audience constantly oscillates between wanting them to finally separate and desperately hoping they might find their way back to one another. One of the film’s rare moments of genuine romance comes when Angela reveals the story of how they first met. Stuck on a terrible date, she kept catching Joe’s eye across the bar, and whenever her date wasn’t looking, he would pull faces to make her laugh. She eventually convinced her date to take her home early, before running eleven blocks back to the bar in the hope that Joe was still there. When she finishes the story, Joe quietly admits she has never told him that before. Buried beneath years of resentment and poor communication is a reminder of the relationship they once had. Perhaps even one they might still find again. Rather than offering neat answers, The Invite leaves the future of both couples open, trusting audiences to draw their own conclusions.
It is difficult not to think of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? while watching The Invite, which Wilde herself has acknowledged as one of the film’s inspirations. Like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, it relies on razor-sharp dialogue, shifting power dynamics and the slow dismantling of carefully constructed personas. Replicating that emotional precision would be an impossible task, but Wilde comes far closer than expected. More importantly, The Invite confirms what Booksmart first suggested: comedy, particularly comedy rooted in flawed but lovable characters, is where she thrives. After the disappointing Don’t Worry Darling, this feels like a confident return to the qualities that made her directorial debut so promising.
Despite its single location, the film remains visually dynamic. Angela and Joe’s apartment becomes almost an extension of Angela herself; warm and inviting when moments of genuine connection emerge, yet increasingly claustrophobic as conversations spiral into confrontation. If renovating the apartment has become Angela’s sole sense of purpose, it needs to feel lived in, personal and obsessively curated. It does.
The sound design is similarly understated but highly effective. During Angela’s most anxious moments, the world seems to fall away around her. Background conversations become muffled, as though heard underwater, trapping us inside her growing panic. Elsewhere, a perfectly chosen Sade needle drop elevates one of the film’s most seductive sequences, while the playful, plucky score continually reminds us that beneath the emotional bruises lies a genuinely funny comedy.
The Invite is ultimately a film about people who have spent years constructing versions of themselves that no longer fit. Through sharp writing, terrific performances and Wilde’s confident direction, those performances gradually fall away to reveal something more recognisably human. The Invite is sexy and consistently funny, but its greatest strength lies in the compassion it affords its characters.
