{"id":720403,"date":"2026-01-25T20:01:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T20:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/720403\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T20:01:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T20:01:10","slug":"olivia-wilde-and-seth-rogen-stoke-marital-strife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/720403\/","title":{"rendered":"Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogen Stoke Marital Strife"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIn her delightful 2017 directing debut, Booksmart<\/a>, Olivia Wilde<\/a> brought insouciant freshness and a sensibility both sweet and dirty to the well-worn coming-of-age comedy. That kind of originality was precisely what her slick but hollow second feature Don\u2019t Worry Darling<\/a> lacked, though the 1950s-set feminist freakout was at least admirably ambitious. In Wilde\u2019s more assured third outing as director, The Invite<\/a>, the elements are closer to alignment even if you can hear the gears cranking as it shifts from comedy of bad manners into scalding pathos.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen it\u2019s cooking, which is most of the run time, this is a smart, sophisticated and incisively acted adult entertainment that savages the crumbling institution of marriage, dangles the promise of sexual rescue and then brings the walls crashing down in a bitter reckoning that seems irreversible \u2014 until a window of hope and healing gets cracked open. That closing note is so lovely, and its visual handling so graceful, that it retroactively smooths the bumps.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tThe Invite\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/p>\n

\tWell worth RSVPing.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tVenue<\/strong>: Sundance Film Festival (Premieres)
Cast<\/strong>: Seth Rogen, Olivia Wilde, Pen\u00e9lope Cruz, Edward Norton
Director<\/strong>: Olivia Wilde
Screenwriters<\/strong>: Will McCormack, Rashida Jones, based on the film Sentimental, by Cesc Gay
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1 hour 48 minutes\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThe quick-witted script by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones<\/a> was adapted from Spanish writer-director Cesc Gay\u2019s 2020 comedy Sentimental, based on his own play and shown in English-speaking territories as The People Upstairs. That property has become a virtual cottage industry, already spawning French, Italian, Swiss, Russian, Czech and South Korean remakes.<\/p>\n

\n\tWilde had very clear ideas about how she intended to make her version, beginning with a generous rehearsal period during which the writers and the four impeccably matched principals workshopped the material, adjusting the fit of their characters and relationships. It was then shot sequentially on a single studio set \u2014 much like a theater company staging a play.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere are weak patches in which a stiff theatricality creeps in, along with a trace of glibness, recalling Roman Polanski\u2019s starry but leaden stage-to-screen vehicle, Carnage. But more often, Wilde and her actors keep it buoyant, with a crackling energy that makes the endless streams of overlapping talk play like jazz.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe director\u2019s playfulness is in evidence from the start, with Seth Rogen<\/a>\u2019s goofy Beavis and Butt-Head laugh heard over shaky cellphone video of his character Joe and wife Angela (Wilde) doodling at a piano in younger years. French pop singer Fabienne Delsol\u2019s jaunty \u201860s-style \u201cI\u2019m Confessin\u2019 (That I Love You)\u201d plays over a gorgeous multi-panel montage of happy moments from their lives together before a smash cut to Joe sitting alone in an auditorium, his dead-eyed face a mask of misery.<\/p>\n

\n\tRogen has never been better. Joe is an associate professor at a respectable enough Bay Area music school, though it\u2019s not top-tier, one of many personal shortcomings that eat away at him like cancer. The awkward physical comedy as he attempts to get his collapsible bike out of the hall and home up the hilly streets of San Francisco is the sole scene that takes place outside the roomy apartment Joe inherited from his parents \u2014 another thing that tags him as a failure, in his eyes. Then there\u2019s the demise decades ago of his band, once the promise of a minor hit had evaporated.<\/p>\n

\n\tFrom the moment Joe gets in the door and collapses on the floor with chronic back pain, it\u2019s clear that Angela is too busy preparing for the evening to pay much attention to her husband\u2019s numbingly familiar complaints. The barely contained hostility between them simmers and frequently boils over as she bustles about readying for a dinner party with the neighbors, an occasion Joe indignantly claims she planned without his knowledge. Hence his arrival home without the wine he was supposed to pick up.<\/p>\n

\n\tWilde is a keen observer of her eager-to-please character\u2019s manic sense of purpose and her mortifying fear of seeming uncool to the attractive couple upstairs, Hawk (Edward Norton<\/a>) and Pi\u00f1a (Pen\u00e9lope Cruz<\/a>). She seems especially in awe of the Spanish Pi\u00f1a: \u201cShe has presence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAngela gushes over how sweet and patient they have been about the noise from their apartment renovation. But Joe scoffs, instead fuming about the neighbors owing them an apology for the nightly aural assault of their raucous sexual congress, notably Pi\u00f1a\u2019s ecstatic orgasms. He\u2019s also not a fan of Hawk\u2019s intrusively friendly chatter in the elevator, while Angela finds him charming and sparks up some very studied feminist outrage while declaring that she would never impinge on another woman\u2019s right to vocalize her hard-earned pleasure. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHawk and Pi\u00f1a arrive just as their hosts\u2019 argument reaches its loud crescendo. Rather than politely saying nothing, Hawk enthuses, \u201cWe love a contentious environment!\u201d That seemingly patronizing comment makes it open season for curmudgeonly Joe, who removes the passive from their passive-aggressive banter, while Angela looks like she wants to crawl under the sofa cushions with embarrassment. The promise of consequences in her irritated double-takes after each of her husband\u2019s barbs is priceless.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe neighbors remain remarkably Zen through all this, with retired firefighter Hawk oozing New Age sincerity while self-possessed Pi\u00f1a, a psychotherapist and sexologist, appears to sit back making an unspoken professional evaluation of the other couple\u2019s issues. Now and then, Hawk and Pi\u00f1a exchange a few words of commentary in Spanish, another thing about them that enrages Joe.<\/p>\n

\n\tPretty much everything that could go wrong does, from a ruined souffle to a drinks crisis to Angela proudly displaying her spread of cheeses, crackers and jam\u00f3n \u2014 in honor of Pi\u00f1a\u2019s heritage \u2014 only to learn that her neighbor doesn\u2019t eat meat, dairy, gluten or sugar. She\u2019s spared one more tiny humiliation when Pi\u00f1a tells Joe, out of his wife\u2019s earshot, that she thinks the jam\u00f3n looks more like prosciutto.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat detail is shared when she follows Joe into his chaotic home office to smoke a joint while Angela gives Hawk a tour of the apartment. This interlude of deeper acquaintance, flirtation and flattery among the reshuffled couples would appear to indicate new allegiances and battle lines being drawn, in the tradition of The Invite<\/a>\u2019s obvious North Star \u2014 Edward Albee\u2019s play (and Mike Nichols\u2019 film), Who\u2019s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? But the scenario is full of surprises, which Wilde and the writers deploy with mischievous glee.<\/p>\n

\n\tJust as Joe is readying to lay into the neighbors about their operatic bedroom performances \u2014 with Angela hilariously shoveling spoonfuls of Pi\u00f1a\u2019s \u201cfamous\u201d flan into his mouth to shut him up \u2014 Hawk and Pi\u00f1a catch him off guard by voluntarily offering an apology.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe less you know about what follows, the better, but suffice it to say the upstairs neighbors\u2019 candid explanation for their tendency to get carried away during sex puts the whole evening in a new light and radically changes the interactions moving forward. This is all very funny, providing the actors with space to stretch their characterizations in droll new ways.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe shift that follows \u2014 as sexual frisson dissolves into old resentments and the marital gloves come off \u2014 could have been more fluidly introduced and risks seeming forced. But the actors are so terrific and so fully at home in their characters\u2019 skins that they ride over the rough patches, uncovering genuine pathos, not just in Joe and Angela\u2019s devastating takedowns but in Hawk\u2019s tender confession of the circumstances that led him to rebuild a new life for himself with Pi\u00f1a. The whole ensemble is excellent, but Rogen and Norton are clear standouts.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe most nagging problem I had with this highly entertaining movie is that it\u2019s too long. Gay\u2019s original Spanish feature ran a fleet 82 minutes and most of the remakes have kept it under 90, which is what the material seems to dictate. Wilde has added north of 20 minutes to the template, and if I had to guess, I\u2019d say it\u2019s the result of the filmmakers deciding the psychology of marriage, relationships, love and sex lacked sufficient depth.<\/p>\n

\n\tBringing on Esther Perel \u2014 the American psychotherapist and author known for her Where Should We Begin? podcast and books on \u201cerotic intelligence\u201d \u2014 as a consultant probably seemed a savvy idea on paper. But it gives The Invite a whiff of didacticism, especially since it doesn\u2019t take much scholarly analysis to arrive at the conclusion that our gripes with our partners are more often anger and regret over our own choices.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut this is a nitpicking criticism of an immensely pleasurable film. Despite the confines of its single setting, the movie packs cinematic life into every scene, thanks to the meticulously planned spatial dynamics of production designer Jade Healy\u2019s soundstage build and the careful thought behind cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra\u2019s framing choices, with lots of low angles, shots through windows, doors and hallways and people often captured in mirrors.<\/p>\n

\n\tHawk talks pretentiously about the exceptional physical energy of his hosts\u2019 living room while praising the delighted Angela\u2019s emotionally attuned decorating instincts. (This causes Joe\u2019s eyes to roll like slot machine symbols.) But physical dynamics are a big part of why the film works, the way the characters negotiate one another\u2019s space saying almost as much about them as their loquacious chatter.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter the disproportionate bashing Wilde took on Don\u2019t Worry Darling, her new movie should silence the doubters. At this point it\u2019s hard to deny she\u2019s the real deal as a director.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In her delightful 2017 directing debut, Booksmart, Olivia Wilde brought insouciant freshness and a sensibility both sweet and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":720404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3935],"tags":[10266,77,10841,3943,139631,215075,215076,60484,24271,214258,195355,214622,215032,16,15],"class_list":["post-720403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-edward-norton","tag-entertainment","tag-festivals","tag-movies","tag-olivia-wilde","tag-penu00e9lope-cruz","tag-rashida-jones","tag-seth-rogen","tag-sundance","tag-sundance-2026","tag-sundance-film-festival","tag-sundance-film-festival-reviews","tag-the-invite","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115957522981539386","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=720403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/720404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=720403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=720403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=720403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}