Olivia Wilde directed The Invite, her third behind the camera after Booksmart and Don’t Worry Darling, and while she brings smart framing and a rich visual texture to the proceedings, her performance is the highlight of this comic chamber drama about a bickering couple who invites their upstairs neighbors over for wine and cheese, to sexually charged results. Indeed, the entire cast is fantastic, rounded out by Edward Norton and Penelope Cruz as the vivacious neighbors, as well as Seth Rogen as the grumbling husband to Wilde’s clenched housewife. Norton has the smirking calm of a zen prankster, while Rogen delivers both the one-liners and a surprisingly deep well of sadness. Cruz, meanwhile, has perhaps never been better in an English-language performance. (Perhaps it’s because screenwriters Will McCormack and Rashida Jones adapted a Spanish play and film by Cesc Gay, although Cruz appeared in neither.) Here, she doesn’t miss a beat during the repartee, while also exuding a quiet confidence that makes her a sly provocateur, one who can change the energy in a conversation with a glance. It’s Wilde, however, who amused me the most, playing a woman comically constricted by the dead end that is her life (a missing bottle opener becomes a Defcon 2-level incident), then flabbergasted by what she’s willing to entertain in order to change things. The dialogue is hilarious throughout, yet even better are the quick-twitch expressions of shock, anger, intrigue, and outrage Wilde offers in response. She delivers a screwball performance in which nearly every turn of the screw plays out across her face.
(7/1/2026)
