The Invite (2026): A Review

THE INVITE (2026)

Dinner parties can be causes for stress. There is the choice of menu. There is the ambiance created for the guests. There is the proper selection of condoms. The Invite is a curious blend of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Indecent Proposal. A pretty unfunny and forced comedy, The Invite scrapes into a somewhat decent drama at the very end, but by then it is too late.

San Francisco hausfrau Angela (director Olivia Wilde) is anxious about her dinner guests. She has been going out of her way to get everything ready to welcome them. Her husband, Joe (Seth Rogen) is less than enthusiastic. He was in a band, The Onslaught, that was a one-hit wonder with One Girl, a song Joe wrote for and about Angela. Now, he teaches music at a conservatory with pretty much no enthusiasm. Henpecked and perpetually irritated, Joe is displeased that Angela gets on his case about not bringing the wine. She did text him but is oblivious to how he would have been unable to read the text while cycling up and down San Fran.

Their daughter, Maggie, is at a sleepover, so Angela and Joe can welcome their exotic upstairs neighbors. Joe finds them extremely aggravating, as their lovemaking is loudly audible at all hours of the day. At last, come Hawk (Edward Norton) and Piña (Penelope Cruz). Joe wants to flat-out ask them why Hawk and Piña are so loud. Angela is aghast at the suggestion. She is also aghast at everything involving everyone. She doesn't realize that the Spaniard Piña is a vegan, so she can't eat the jamon Angela bought. She forces Joe to open the champagne that they've been saving for their anniversary.

As the night goes on, Angela & Hawk and Joe & Piña start bonding. It looks like things are settling down, but there is a catch. Hawk and Piña finally fess up about the loud sex sessions. There is a reason for that. Hawk and Piña are what was once called swingers. Here, they admit to hosting sex parties where various group go at it. With that, Hawk and Piña offer an invite for Angela and Joe to join in the sex games. Piña, who is also a therapist, is reluctant to have the very tense and battling Joe & Angela join in right away. Both, however, insist that they can.

It turns out that they can't. The tension between Joe and Angela makes any schtupping pretty much impossible. However, there may yet be hope that Joe and Angela may find their way to each other again.

Olivia Wilde's last directorial effort was Don't Worry Darling. Given how disastrous Don't Worry Darling ended up, I am astonished that anyone was willing to give Wilde another crack at being an auteur. Don't Worry Darling was more visuals over substance. The Invite, which is a remake of the Spanish film Sentimental, is kept to almost exclusively one setting and four characters. It is, in short, almost like a filmed play. As such, we can focus on the performances. 

They are all almost universally awful. I keep hearing much talk about how Olivia Wilde is a potential Best Actress and Best Director contender for this film. Having now seen The Invite, I wonder if all those people are either seriously deranged or paid off to say such sweet things. The acting can be universally described as "broad and forced". Everyone plays things in such a forced manner, where exaggerated faces are meant to reveal thoughts and emotions. The Invite cast would be considered overacting in a silent film. 

It is interesting that it is Wilde who is the broadest, hammiest performer. The exaggerated facial expressions, the almost cartoonish manner, all make Angela into an unreal person. I think that Wilde along with screenwriters Will McCormack and Rashida Jones (both of whom are actors), thought that making everyone open up their eyes was great acting. No one is so skilled an actor as to make people believe that Edward Norton and Penelope Cruz would long for the erotic touch of Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogen.

I am not sure that I would say that Rogen gave a performance. All it consisted of was just snark and sarcasm. Norton and Cruz played slightly wide-eyed and faux alluring. In short, it looked like none of the actors stretched.

It never appeared that these people were real. They just seemed to exist because The Invite said that they needed to exist. For a long time, The Invite is a two-person play, and not a good one. Seeing Angela and Joe argue repeatedly is not entertaining. 

A major issue is Devonté Hynes' score. It is on a sitcom level, emphasizing the "humor" and "comedy" when it ends up showing how unfunny everything is. Using Georges Bizet's Habanera to emphasis Hawk and Piña's invite to join their lurid web of sex games pus a sad coda on what The Invite thinks is the height of hilarity. 

As I said, I think The Invite is kind of a more deranged Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (two couples, an older one inviting a younger one to their home where they attempt to play Hump the Hostess and Humiliate the Host) with a bit of Indecent Proposal thrown in (though no money is offered). The script is not funny either. You have Hawk completely unaware of who Sade is. Near the end, I think Angela or Joe said, "We couldn't even pull of an orgy", which might have read funny on the page but wasn't when spoken.

That all being said, The Invite became better in the last ten or so minutes. Hawk revealing his true identity as Howard Wilson Kelly and his tragic backstory was moving. We then get an impromptu therapy session, where Piña analyzes that Joe and Angela are miserable together because they couldn't communicate is quite a strong finish. I get that we are supposed to believe that, perhaps, Joe and Angela will do more than stay together for Maggie. I don't think The Invite earned that ending, but credit to them for trying.

The Invite is not funny because the performances are so big and broad that they hammer down any sense of reality. Yes, it does involve people being invited to join in sex parties. However, I think such a premise is plausible if played correctly. It was not here. I think the film would have worked better as a straight drama where the struggling couple make spectacles out of themselves to the newer couple. Regretfully, I must decline The Invite. 

DECISION: D-