Film Review: The Invite
Art
The Invite
Director: Olivia Wilde
Annapurna Pictures, Filmation Entertainment
In Theaters: 07.10.2026
The only thing more stressful than having an argument with your partner is being caught in the middle of another couple having an argument. The Invite is, at times, a deeply uncomfortable movie, but it’s a hilarious and brilliant one that is hard to forget.
Joe (Seth Rogen, The Studio) arrives home after a day at work to find his wife, Angela (Olivia Wilde) preparing an elaborate dinner for their upstairs neighbors, whom Joe resents because of the loud sex noises coming from the apartment late at night. When Hawk (Edward Norton, American History X, Birdman) and Piña (Penélope Cruz, Vicky Christina Barcelona, Parallel Mothers) arrive, the conversation ends up taking an unexpected turn, with even more unexpected results. What started as a dull evening soon devolved into a puree of confessions, flirtation and revelation, exposing the two couples’ deepest insecurities and desires. As boundaries blur and long-buried frustrations erupt, both relationships are forced to confront uncomfortable truths about love, fidelity and intimacy.
The Invite, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2026, is a spectacular rebound for Olivia Wilde after her last directing effort, Don’t Worry Darling (2022), bombed with audiences and with critics. While the brilliance of the Oscar caliber screenplay by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack (Celeste and Jesse Forever) is hard to overstate, Wilde’s direction is simply stunning. The film is confined almost entirely to one apartment in one evening, and upon reading the script, most of us would likely either jump to feeling that it should be a stageplay or that the only way to do it would be Woody Allen style: photograph it on a set in a soundstage with long takes, wide shots and handheld cameras. Wilde has instead made a single camera film that feels like it’s all in a real apartment, with intricately executed shots and editing that almost make F1 look simple and static by comparison and does so without sacrificing the all important rhythm of the dialogue and performances that drive the movie. Instead, it allows for close-up emphasis on every pivotal expression and side glance, letting those special unspoken moments of connection and painful moments of feeling alone come into focus. This is, quite frankly, exactly the film that Allen never had the patience or technical skill to make.
The Invite explores the quiet loneliness that can exist even within long-term relationships, examining the emotional gulfs that gradually form between people who once believed they knew each other completely. Through an increasingly intimate, hilarious and hard hitting dinner conversation, we see how desire takes many different forms — not just sexual longing but the yearning to feel seen, understood, fulfilled and to be desired. As the evening pushes both couples beyond their comfort zones, The Invite suggests that the unfamiliar can be both exhilarating and frightening, yet it resists easy conclusions, recognizing that while new experiences may offer the promise of transformation, different does not automatically mean better, but the emotional costs of just letting things be what they are can be deadly.
The four person cast is the definition of ensemble acting, and every time I settled on a notion of who the movie truly belonged to, the focus would shift, and I’d be blown away by a moment from someone else. Wilde and Rogen have astonishing chemistry, with impeccable comic timing and a casual familiarity with each other that equally sells the moments of biting repartee and the more dramatic moments of pain and resentment. Cruz is thoroughly divine, commanding the screen with her fierce confidence and raw sexuality, and Norton dazzles by knowing when to hold back and let the other take the lead, then surprises with a stunning and heartbreaking monologue that ranks up there with his most raw and piercing work. The quarter syncs into a perfect team, bringing a sense of truth to the acting that rarely happens to this extent in cinematic comedy.
The Invite is easily one of the best films of 2026, blending intoxicatingly irresistible belly laughs with sobering gut punches of profound heartache. It’s the kind of penetrating art that forces you to look inward and take stock of your life. This is an invitation that you cannot pass up. —Patrick Gibbs
Read more film reviews by Patrick Gibbs:
Film Review: Moana
Film Review: Lucky Strike
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