Four actors go to town in an exhilarating, hilarious way in The Invite, a fantastic return to form for director Olivia Wilde.
Wilde made her directorial debut with the very funny Booksmart and then took a backward step with her follow up, Don’t Worry Darling. That second film was a visual marvel, but the story was a bit flat and strained for relevance.
No matter—it was just a speed bump, because she’s made her best film yet in The Invite.
The movie has four great performers (Wilde, Seth Rogen, Ed Norton and Penelope Cruz) in a San Francisco apartment for almost the entire running time. Married couple Angela (Wilde) and Joe (Rogen) have invited upstairs neighbors Piña (Cruz) and Hawk (Norton) over for the evening, much to Joe’s chagrin. Angela wants to get to know the couple better, while Joe wants to take them to the mat for all the noise they make at night when they are having raucous sex.
The evening gets off to a tense start, but after the smoking of a joint and some wine, the couples start to open up. Angela and Joe come to understand the reason why that upstairs noise is so loud—and then things take a very interesting, scintillating turn.
Credit Wilde for putting a film together that crackles with energy through all of its moments, whether they’re quiet and tense, or loud and boisterous.
The cast knows their ways around a comic moment, and Wilde and her editors know how to amplify them. There’s also a terrific orchestral soundtrack that almost feels like an observer reacting to everything that is going on. This film is a shining example of how music can take a film to the next level.
The movie is funny from start to end. It doesn’t hurt that Rogen—an underrated comic and dramatic actor if there ever was one—is at the center, holding it all together. His Joe runs the complete emotional gauntlet in this movie, and Rogen shines.
Wilde’s performance is her best yet, giving us a justifiably upset character in Angela. (Her husband is going through a major douchebag period.) Angela is perhaps the nicest character of the four, but she’s got a lot of angst that has her running hot—and ready to explode.
Cruz has also never been better, with her Piña being both brutally honest and dangerously insightful. Norton gets to tap into his comedic side while also giving a full dimensional performance as a former firefighter with a strange penchant for carpets.
The is a remake of a French film, and some of the plotting feels a little too cliché—but that’s forgivable when you have a cast and director elevating the material into the stratosphere.
Wilde is officially one of the greater actor/directors of the current cinematic era.
