‘The Invite’ Prompt Was — Bergman, But Make It Funny!

If you invited me to see The Invite again tonight, I’d say yes. I’d be excited. Excited to see it with new people, especially. To be clear, I have seen the film already, but there are a lot of things I have already done that I might like to try with new people… or maybe even the same ones again. I wish I could cleverly say that this is the message of the film – perhaps it’s one of them – but I don’t want to see The Invite for a second (or third!) time just because it inculcated me into a new way of thinking, I want to see it again because it is a whip smart, carefully crafted, funny character-study-first-situation-comedy-second movie.

Like every good comedy — and like Booksmart, her debut —  Olivia Wilde’s third directing feature is grounded in contemporary reality and pathos. This one also delivers comic gems that had me, my twenty year old daughter and my octogenarian mother smiling and even laughing two days on. So, yeah, if you’re an adult, you should see it.

The Invite ★★★★ (4/5 stars)
Directed by: Olivia Wilde
Starring: Seth Rogen, Olivia Wilde, Penelope Cruz, Edward Norton
Written by: Cesc Gay (script), Rashida Jones and Will MacCormack (screenplay)
Running time: 107 mins

While talking about the film, I caught myself referring to it as a play. As it turns out, The Invite is based on one. The screenplay by Rashida Jones and Will MacCormack is an adaptation of the Spanish film The People Upstairs by Cesc Gay, which he adapted from his own play. And it feels like it. Much in the same way that the film version of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? feels like a play, or Woody Allen’s early works (he was initially a playwright) feel like plays. And I am here for it.

Like a play with a single set and limited time frame, this film puts the focus on the actors and the writing. But the simplicity of the single setting belies the important role that the apartment plays in The Invite, thanks in large part to the smart design by Jade Healy, who creates a historically accurate, catacomb-like pre-war San Francisco apartment, replete with windows and mirrors that refract and expose and enclose.

Joe (Seth Rogen, brilliant) and Angela’s (Wilde, an excellent foil) beautiful apartment is financially out of reach for most. Nonetheless, it is subject to the pitfalls of communal living. You can hear your neighbors and they might be able to hear you, you cannot control who you may bump into in the elevator, and if you don’t draw the blinds – or don’t have any – someone may catch a glimpse of a private, or not so private moment. Let the shenanigans begin!

Joe and Angela have lived in Joe’s childhood apartment for many years. Like their home, their relationship has settled with time. Patterns have become habits, or vice versa. Who can tell? They’re entrenched. But their familiar ground shifts, just a little, when a new couple moves in upstairs: the sexy, aspirational Piña (a tantrically restrained Penélope Cruz) and the calm, cool and collected Hawk (an exquisitely understated Edward Norton). Angela impulsively invites them to dinner, leading to a madcap evening that opens eyes, ears and, ahem, more…

If it feels like I’m teasing you and leaving the juicy bits for you to see them for yourself, you’re on to me. Treat yourself. Bring a friend or two, a group, even. This is a funny grown-up comedy the likes of which we haven’t seen for a while; a film about middle age, made by people in middle age, that has multi-generational appeal. Despite a deceptively minimal production, this chamber piece, an amalgam of comedy, drama, and sex farce, operates on many levels, making it worthy of a trip to the cinema.

The acting is first rate. Seth Rogen is downright fantastic. He would have stolen the movie if it weren’t for the world class actors surrounding him. Wilde’s interpretation of Angela, teetering on the edge of a breakdown, is as good as her assured direction. As director, she plays with rhythm and intensity, framing and point of view, as well as the proximity of actors to each other and to camera (including judicious and effective handheld work by DP Adam Newport-Berra). She wisely gives her actors room, punching up the screenplay’s comedy while revealing its humanity. The fluid interplay of the quartet of actors is reminiscent of Ingmar Bergman’s chamber pieces. But funny. Very funny.

The Invite sets the tone with an opening quote from another Wilde, Oscar. “One should always be in love … That is the reason one should never marry.” By the end of the movie, though, I was more team Olivia than team Oscar. The Invite kinda made me want to be married. And have friends over.