The Invite Review: A tense, funny chamber comedy that finds its footing

The story of a clashing couple trapped in a small space and the walls closing in is not a new tale told in the annals of cinema but Olivia Wilde’s The Invite slots into a decent place somewhere in the middle of that very storied tradition.

The story was adapted from Cesc Gay’s Spanish stage play Els vens de dalt and has previously been translated into an Italian, Swiss, French, South Korean and now American production.

When a story has been refashioned as many times as this one, it usually means it has the structure and strength of a sturdy house-it can easily redecorate and be readily identifiable.

The American production written by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones is centered on a San Francisco apartment and is set for an evening as the residents upstairs the free-spirited, bohemian Pia (Penelope Cruz) and her boyfriend Hawk (Edward Norton) join the building’s occupants-husband Joe (Seth Rogen) and Angela (Wilde) themselves- for drinks and some small bites.

The excuse is good will; the reality is somewhat more unpleasant, as becomes obvious to us almost from the start, that Angela is wound up and trying desperately to maintain appearances.

Her husband hardly makes an effort to conceal either his impatience with her or the urge to finally confront the noisy upstairs couple about the sound of their relations disturbing his sleep for weeks on end.

A Marriage Under the Microscope

Even prior to the first of the guests knocking, however, we get a distinct impression of the fault lines in Joe and Angela’s marriage of twelve years.

While Joe was once a moderately promising indie-rock singer whose one-hit career ultimately petered out, he now coaches a class at a Bay Area music conservatory where he’s developed a personality in which the bitterness of his lost fame now sits with the comfort of the family chair.

Angela, for her part, has put aside her past art school dreams and all creative outlets except the decor of the apartment itself-something that would become a minor battlefield over the course of the evening-to the immense pride of the space she meticulously renovated. Each couple knows where the other’s buttons are to be pushed, and the early going crackles with a familiar tension found between people who’ve hurt each other so long that it’s evolved to the level of fine art.

Olivia Wilde is remarkably skillful with her co-actor and they are equally skillful at convincingly portraying Joe and Angela, two spouses far beyond their youthful warmth. Rogen’s work in The Invite is probably the most effective and memorable performance of his career. His usual effervescence seems to have curdled into that mid-life, weary disillusionment, and his physical presence as Joe-especially during a subsequent scene when he’s laid up by an injury, for example-is wonderful, with a sort of Mel Brooks brand of tragic slapstick.

The Upstairs Couple and the Knife in the Room

Pia and Hawk enter like a gale force. Enthusiastic, chatty, positive and completely at ease with themselves; they are in other words annoyingly enviable to almost all their peers. Hawk (an ex firefighter and former urban philosopher) can’t praise the other couple enough and lays on the New Age schtick to a thick fare, and in the same familiar way Norton – never short of the skill of walking the tightrope between a sweet authenticity and insincere calculation – demonstrates his magic again: he delivers one of two long speeches in the film with utter conviction, whether the subject matter is inspiringly serious or incredibly absurd. He is as adept as a conversationalist with women as with men, and at no point do you quite know if he’s hitting on someone or just behaves like this in general.

However, Pia, a psychotherapist and sexologist whom we meet here, turns out to be Cruz’s film career revelation: she is far from being just a hot-blooded and overtly passionate European liberation caricature designed to make the American equivalent seem all square by comparison. Cruz refuses to be typecast; Pia’s outspoken nature, analytical perspective on their new acquaintances, and ease at being the most self-possessed in any room hide the underlying character who isn’t as confident as she seems: she’s driven by an unexamined adolescent urge to outrage and defy societal norms, and, in a sense, still afraid to be truly exposed.

Where Wilde Stumbles – and Recovers

The film’s initial setup seems to carry overtones of an overly busy director at work. Wilde’s overly zealous manipulation of her cast within the corners of the frame, and Adam Newport-Berra’s visual acrobatics in reflecting imagery via the many mirrors of the room (thus a multiplicity of split screen perspectives) is overly clever yet emotionally unnecessary. Compounded by a nearly non-stop score by Dev Hynes that all too effectively over-emphasises the emotional impact of each scene, thereby smothering its subtext in many instances-as when a frantic cello composition accompanies one particularly comic exchange, rendering it more in the vein of a horror picture than a relationship comedy-these first hour features come across like someone’s attempt to get every one to agree that:

“This film has got a style!

“This film feels claustrophobic!”

And “This film will keep you at a distance.”

Something takes hold and redirects the film from this overeager path roughly at the movie’s halfway point. The visual as well as tonal fireworks subside, and the quartet of actors is allowed simply to enact their respective roles in a manner that is only ever afforded when the director implicitly trusts the talent: ease, command, restraint, all that is necessary for compelling, intimate dramatic storytelling. This turn is where The Invite transforms itself into an altogether different and far more potent work: it becomes- in short, as easy-going as it is commanding and subtly observant- a film in which you cease to acknowledge a story as it unfolds and become instead immersed as if the story simply is .

Verdict

The Invite is a worldly, intelligent adult comedy that earns its place among the year’s better films. It does not finally judge any of its four characters for their contradictions and hypocrisies — it sees them, and through them, with an equanimity that is its greatest virtue. It stumbles in its eagerness to announce itself, then quietly finds what it was always reaching for. One might wish Wilde had trusted the material — and her cast — a little sooner. But what she eventually achieves is something genuinely rare: a film that makes you laugh, makes you uncomfortable, and makes you think about your own life on the drive home. It could have been wilder. What it is, is more than enough.

Our Rating
★★★½ out of ★★★★ — An overcooked first half gives way to a quietly brilliant conclusion, anchored by four exceptional performances and Wilde’s most assured direction yet.