‘We love a contentious environment...’
Now that we’re seemingly at the end of Marvel’s dominance of the cinematic cycle, films for grown-ups seem to be making a comeback. There have been a spate of thoughtful, provocative and compelling dramedies (Materalists, We Live in Time, Challengers, May December, A Different Man, etc) released over the last five years or so and while there is space for both comic book adaptations and more serious dramas to co-exist, this is still a heartening development. The Invite, directed by and starring Olivia Wilde, is probably the best of the lot…
Joe (Seth Rogen) and Angela (Olivia Wilde) are clinging on to their marriage by a thread. Joe is miserable, Angela is disillusioned, and so, the latter’s decision to invite the upstairs neighbours round to dinner does not sit well with the former. The neighbours are Penélope Cruz as Piña, an uninhibited divorcee and Ed Norton as Hawk, a pretentious but friendly widower.
What’s so great about The Invite is that it is proof positive that all you need to make a truly great film is four actors, a good script and a single location. Let’s start with the script. Co-written by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones, this remake of the 2020 Spanish film The People Upstairs perfectly captures the nuances, intricacies, and resentments of long-term marriage. As someone who has been married for ten years myself, this is probably the most accurate portrayal of what married life can be like if things start to go south that I have seen since Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Rogen, coming off the back of the massive success of his multi-award-winning comedy The Studio, seems more assured around his co-stars here than he has in the past, less interested in trying to prove himself. Wilde delivers perhaps a career best performance alongside him and both Cruz and particularly Norton (who is always excellent) fully commit to their, quite frankly, ridiculous characters, ensuring that things never become too cartoonish (as a director, Wilde has an excellent grasp of tone, this thing is at once one of the best comedies and one of the best dramatic films of the year), and Devonté Hynes’ playful score holds the whole thing together.
The Invite is not just one of the films of the year, it’s one of the best relationship films of the past ten years. It’s the kind of film that I can’t imagine anyone not enjoying and it seems destined to become a cult classic.
