ChiefLeef22

Joe and Angela’s marriage is on thin ice. When they invite their enigmatic upstairs neighbors for a dinner party, the night spirals into unexpected places. Have they reignited the spark or lit the match that burns it all down?

Director: Olivia Wilde

Cast: Seth Rogen, Olivia Wilde, Penélope Cruz, Edward Norton

Rotten Tomatoes:

Metacritic:

Some Reviews:

- 100 / 100

"The Invite" is marvelously entertaining, but part of the reason for that is that I think a lot of people are going to see themselves mirrored in this movie, which for all its sharp-tongued bravura is humane enough to play a truth game that rings true.

It’s the sort of one-location, star-driven ensemble piece that could have merely been a theatrical exercise, and somehow manages to avoid being either stagy or stodgy. Even more impressive is how the actors sync up their own unique performance styles.

- 5 / 5

The Invite is Olivia Wilde’s best effort yet, delivering a horny, loud, soulful, mostly stressful, witty outlook on a relationship hanging by a thread.

- 'A'

With incredible performances, crisp and often hilarious dialogue, The Invite will be known as Olivia Wilde’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and this is not only fair, but an obvious influence. There are also shades of Husbands and Wives, Woman Under the Influence, and more recently, Splitsville. The most remarkable thing about The Invite is not the films it is like, but in the way we are invited to be part of something special, thoughtful, and refreshingly hopeful.

- 3.5 / 4

The Invite is smart and even profound, but make no mistake, it’s also a laugh riot. This is a supremely entertaining film with something to say about relationships, sex, and more. I could have watched this movie for another hour, it was so pleasurable to experience. I loved The Invite and this is, to end on a terrible pun, an invitation that you must accept!

- 4 / 5

Wilde’s latest slots into a rich lineage of hilariously awkward sex comedies. With a stellar cast finding alchemy in their contrasting styles, it’s daringly close to the bone and frequently fall-off-your-chair funny.

- 4 / 5

On the surface, this is a very tense and very funny comedy of manners. Underneath all that, though, is a sad, incisive, brilliantly drawn study of a failing marriage.

- 9 / 10

Marriage can be wonderful; it can also be rough. It can sometimes be both at the same time. What makes The Invite ultimately so special is its unabashed honesty, even when it means doom. Like a complex symphony, it can, and should, hit all the notes.

- 4 / 5

It’s too easy to compare this to a Woody Allen vintage – sophisticated pitter-patter dialogue over wine – especially as that has often become more of a putdown (nothing more uncomfortable than someone trying to limply emulate his style) but there are shades of his best work here. Wilde knows, along with Jones and McCormack, how much we all vicariously enjoy watching couples spar, and it’s impossible not to insert ourselves into the night, turning us all into deeply invested football commentators.

- 4 / 5

Olivia Wilde’s third behind-the-camera feature (following Booksmart and Don’t Worry Darling) sports four excellent lead performances—including hers—that turn this combative dramedy (premiering at the Sundance Film Festival) into a hysterical, insightful, and ultimately moving portrait of the difficulties of keeping long-term relationships alive.

- 4 / 5

Contrary to some other film festivals out there, standing ovations don’t happen all of the time at Sundance. And, to be fair, getting one doesn’t mean the movie was necessarily great or will be a box office smash. But in the case of Olivia Wilde’s hilarious, rapid-fire marital comedy The Invite, I think both things are true. Wilde’s third time behind the camera, and a welcome return to comedy for the first time since Booksmart, the film is also a rebound from her polarizing suburban satire, Don’t Worry Darling. Underneath all of the witty one-liners, this is also a film that packs quite an emotional wallop, exploring love and sex between a longtime married couple that has lost that spark, and maybe needs a bit of neighborly advice to get it back.

- 8 / 10

Rare are comedies this funny and this mature. Its rich themes hit home, especially for anyone in a long-term relationship. We constantly compare ourselves to others, or worse, to the dreams of our younger selves. It’s all too easy to let the moments that didn’t turn out the way we hoped overshadow everything else, even the good we still have. Dreams may die, but not everything has to die with them. With wit and hard-earned clarity, “The Invite” explores marital communication in ways that feel honest and earned. It’s a razor-sharp, laugh-out-loud comedy that is both blisteringly funny and deeply sad.

- 8 / 10

The Invite is a mature, attractive-looking comedy, which we rarely get in this day and age. Wilde once again proves that she's an exciting director of comedies who knows exactly how to balance these types of stories, and in front of the camera, she's equally incredible with her ensemble cast that makes this a captivating story through and through. The Invite might seem like a simple idea, but Wilde, as well as Jones, McCormack, and her excellent cast, make this into a compelling, delightful, and moving comedy that's more intricate than it might seem.

- 'B+'

Wilde’s previous film, “Don’t Worry, Darling,” was somewhat similarly driven by questions about the price of relationships, the cost of the lies we tell, the impossibility of really knowing someone, but Wilde answers those same questions here with far more insight and entertaining humor (it cannot be overstated how fun it is to watch this one in a packed theater). The film’s third act stumbles a bit, trading in its high humor for darker emotions that Wilde cannot quite as deftly navigate (and with, unless I am very mistaken, a tiny, left-turn mystery about the true nature of Hawk and Pina). Still, the rest of this meal (light on the soufflé, heavy on the jambon) is such a treat, a truly adult comedy with plenty to say and even more laughs to share. Accept this invite, and fast.

- 2.5 / 4

Wilde mircromanages her passion project to the point of nearly casting authenticity to the wind. But by the time The Invite burrows into the heart of its main characters and reveals the scope of their regrets and longings, it’s hard to argue that it doesn’t strike a chord of genuine emotion. For Wilde, this film about the troubled marriage between a neurotic and a cynic is clearly personal, and by the time it reaches its finale, however wonkily, we can see that beneath its indulgences lies something surprisingly well-observed and sincerely felt.

The Invite is primarily a comedy, and it does have some solid laughs, though the character interactions can also feel so manufactured that our bullshit detectors start going off fairly early. If in something like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf the characters’ inadequacies and resentments fuel their increasingly erratic behavior, here these people feel like grab bags of punchlines, their actions there primarily to get laughs.

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