Run time: 107 mins
This A-list ensemble is electrifying in Olivia Wilde’s spiky and riotous comedy about sex, marriage and partner-swapping.
The Invite puts the spotlight entirely upon four quite different actors playing two adult couples negotiating anxieties surrounding sex with other people.
A remake of the Spanish film The People Upstairs, it focuses on one disastrous hangout as Joe (Seth Rogen) and Angela (Wilde) invite the freewheeling, un-married couple, Pina (Penélope Cruz) and Hawk (Edward Norton) from the apartment above them over for drinks. Tensions soon rise as uncomfortable truths are revealed and we get to revel (not to mention squirm) in the ever increasing awkwardness.
It might be too easy to compare this to vintage Woody Allen – sophisticated pitter-patter dialogue over wine – but there are shades of his best work here. The film knows 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 armchair commentators. It seems that the chance to watch a genuinely funny and uncommonly intelligent comedy for adults is an invite we have all been waiting for