\t\t\tmovie review\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\tTHE INVITE\t\t<\/p>\n
Running time: 107 minutes. Not yet rated.<\/p>\n
PARK CITY, Utah \u2014 If a better comedy than \u201cThe Invite\u201d hits theaters this year, audiences will be damn lucky to RSVP.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Director Olivia Wilde\u2019s outstanding movie, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival Saturday to a rare mountain standing ovation, should go down as one of the best of 2026. Of any genre. You\u2019ll howl.<\/p>\n
What a stunning return to form this is for Wilde after the letdown that was \u201cDon\u2019t Worry Darling.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
I, for one, am no longer worrying, darlings, because now she\u2019s firmly back in prime \u201cBooksmart\u201d territory with a sophisticated, snappy, seductive and stupendously funny film about a long-married couple who are in way over their heads.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
They\u2019re Joe (Seth Rogen) and Angela (Wilde doing double duty), husband-and-wife apartment dwellers for whom marriage has become a sleepy series of silent nights and petty grievances.<\/p>\n
\t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJohnny Oleksinski<\/p>\n
Their passive-aggressive putdowns are flung so quickly and casually, you walk out convinced Wilde and Rogen have been secretly married for 20 years.<\/p>\n
One evening, when their 12-year-old daughter is at a friend\u2019s house, Angela invites their bohemian upstairs neighbors Hawk (Edward Norton) and Pina (Penelope Cruz) over for a classy wine-and-charcuterie party.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Invite\u201d had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival<\/p>\n
High-strung Angela desperately aspires to be considered cultured. And as she strenuously tries to prove herself, Wilde gives one of her finest performances. Practically rhythmic gymnastics.<\/p>\n
She mentally grasps for the thesaurus when she attempts to describe her super basic home renovation. And her face twists in operatic agony over snafus with her cheese souffle and empty wine cabinet. A bored stay-at-home mom, Angela is itching to host the cosmopolitan couple.<\/p>\n
But Joe, a music teacher who hates his job, loathes the free-spirited pair because they have foghorn-loud sex into the early morning, and insists the get-together be called off. Too late. The pair knock, knock, knock mid-fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe love a contentious environment,\u201d says zen Hawk.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve hit the jackpot then,\u201d deadpans Joe.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They sure have.<\/p>\n
Edward Norton, Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogan attend Sundance. Getty Images<\/p>\n
The phenomenal script is a bullet train of mean slights, awkward miscommunications, deception and \u201coh no!\u201d bombshells. And Wilde, her actors \u2014 especially masterful Rogen \u2014 and editor are silliness savants.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Punchlines, witty asides and physical bits are delivered and choreographed with such easy dexterity, \u201cThe Invite\u201d almost doesn\u2019t feel like a 2026 comedy, a designation that usually means \u201cdumb as rocks\u201d or\u00a0 \u201cdrama with a clown nose.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The style here is retro, yet the sheer abundance of truly great jokes keeps it fresh and modern.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The erratic soiree moves from the kitchen to the couch. The vino and tequila flow, the pot gets smoked and the Xanax gets popped.<\/p>\n
And while that booze-to-blows setup rings of the old formula from \u201cWho\u2019s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?\u201d and the later play-turned-Roman-Polanski movie \u201cGod of Carnage,\u201d its avalanche of zingers \u2014 none of which fall flat \u2014 and frenetic pace set \u201cThe Invite\u201d apart.<\/p>\n
Seth Rogan plays Joe, a music teacher who hates his job. Chris Pizzello\/Invision\/AP<\/p>\n
Joe and Angela are also not scotch-swilling academics like George and Martha or hapless suburbanites doing sophomoric-if-fun gags, like Rogen and Rose Byrne in \u201cNeighbors.\u201d You\u2019ll recognize this spark-snuffed duo to the point of cringing.<\/p>\n
I was reminded of when I visit old pals who have kids, and they regale me with all the stuff they can\u2019t do anymore.<\/p>\n
And, while Hawk and Pina \u2014 whose jobs are too amusing to drop here \u2014 are their life-loving opposites, Norton and Cruz don\u2019t ham it up. They aren\u2019t the Fockers; they\u2019re that inhibitionless friend who says, \u201cCome with me to Mykonos!\u201d a day before the flight.<\/p>\n
The two zesty actors are hilarious. However, in a reversal, it\u2019s the \u201cstraight\u201d duo who provide most of the laughs \u2014 not the wacky one.<\/p>\n
The team of \u201cThe Invite\u201d attends their Sundance world premiere. Chelsea Lauren\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n
If you sense where the movie is headed, you\u2019re right \u2014 and also wrong.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Invite\u201d is lusty for sure, but it has a serious side, which barges in during the final half hour when questions about Joe and Angela\u2019s relationship tumble out into the open.<\/p>\n
Issues millions of people face everyday are addressed cleverly and poignantly, and never without a hint of humor. Wilde isn\u2019t really interested in sentimentality, either, and her movie hits harder for it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Invite\u201d might be the worst party of the year, but beg, borrow and steal for an invite.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"movie review THE INVITE Running time: 107 minutes. Not yet rated. PARK CITY, Utah \u2014 If a better…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":545523,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[28],"tags":[157036,171,53,202775,158625,1746,124933,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-545522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-edward-norton","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-olivia-wilde","tag-penelope-cruz","tag-seth-rogen","tag-sundance-film-festival","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115963995357448214","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}