The Invite (2026)

The Invite might be an uncomfortable dinner party farce, yet ends as something surprisingly heartfelt, thanks to four actors working at the top of their game.

Olivia Wilde’s third feature as director might well be her strongest to date, but that needs to be caveated by the fact that I didn’t think her debut, 2019’s Booksmart, was anywhere near as good as everyone else seemed to think. The Invite is a far better film, with Wilde herself starring in a four hander alongside Seth Rogen, Ed Norton, and Penelope Cruz in what is an adaptation of the 2020 Spanish film The People Upstairs, itself a cinematic portrayal of Cesc Gay’s stage play.

Wilde’s Angela is unhappily married to Rogan’s failed musician Joe, a guy who used to be in a band but has now settled into mid-life misery as a teacher in a minor liberal arts college and living in his late parents' apartment. The opening sequence briefly sees Joe on his own in the middle of an otherwise empty auditorium (save his pupils playing on stage) before he struggles with the cycle home and collapses on the floor of the apartment complaining about his back. This, in a nutshell, sums up his rather selfish outlook at his current predicament, but Angela is no better, dismissing her husband in an eerily convincing fashion as the pair bicker about the fact that Angela has invited the neighbours down for dinner.

We learn that Pina (Cruz) and Hawk (Norton) keep their neighbours up nightly with their loud and vigorous lovemaking, something that Angela is at pains to keep to themselves during the dinner party. It’s all very clear where this is all going to end up, but The Invite is actually far less excruciating than some have claimed, and surprisingly heart-warming, especially in the final scenes of the film, which are genuinely excellent.

In between there are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments as this farce of an evening descends into the depths of filth and depravity that you might expect- think more American Pie (1999) than Salò (1975)- and at times sprints into eye-rolling territory. But when The Invite does spill over into content that pulls you away from its central themes, the four performances at its center very quickly drag you back in. All of them are sensational, and while Wilde’s Angela might be the most irritating character, she plays her brilliantly. And by the end, your loyalties, bizarrely, lie equally across this mess of a marriage.

Rogen might well be playing another version of a character he’s played many times before, but it feels like a similar character all grown up, while Norton is absolutely hilarious as Hawk; proof, if any was needed, that he should try his hand at comedy more frequently. And Cruz is Cruz, one of the most sensational actresses we’ve ever had the fortune to experience on the big screen. Her speech towards the end of The Invite is an exercise in deliverance and could be aimed at any miserable couple in front of the screen.

Wilde has done an impressive job here, and while The Invite does feel stagey and doesn’t quite all hang together as a feature film, there’s much to like. It’s ridiculous, at times far too ludicrous to accept, but the golden nugget at the heart of it is its four fantastic performances. And despite the lunacy that has gone before it, the film’s ending almost had me in tears, for all the right, real-life reasons it should. ★★★½

7.4/10