WE LOVE A CONTENTIOUS ENVIRONMENT
Notes on THE INVITE
liked it! not perfect (little too long, drags in the final act) but does a lot with a very basic concept
the setup simple: olivia wilde and seth rogen (not even gonna try to use their character names, forgot them as soon as the movie ended) are a mid-40s married couple in a rough stretch, invite their chic sexy cool upstairs neighbors (ed norton and penelpe cruz) over for dinner. hijinks ensue.
based on a 2020 spanish movie (itself originally a play) that has been remade five (!!!) times in five countries already, with a sixth to come in 2027. easy to understand why, all you need is four actors and a set.
would love to attend a festival that just shows all these remakes back to back, i’m sure some delightful cultural differences between the diff editions
olivia wilde great in front of and behind the camera. some really fun physical humor that i didn’t know she had in her (her facial reactions to anything seth rogan says, physical flusteredness prepping for the neighbors, palpable eagerness when the swinging comes up), she’s the keystone for the entire movie and more than holds up her end of the burden. the kind of performance that i think of when people talk about the oscars ignoring genre stuff.
rogan is the Seth Rogan™ we’ve seen a dozen times before but the familiarity adds something real, this is the guy you remember from superbad and 40yo virgin and pineapple express but older, wearier, disappointed by his life and himself. he’s got the mien of an great athlete in their ugly final years in the league— the charm and goofiness still shines through in moments but he just doesn’t have that burst, that boyish charm. getting locked up at the top of the key by scrubs who he would’ve blown by 5 years ago, but the defender is his own personal flaws and he knows it. some really physical humor too: his back injury the physical manifestation of his disappointments, some of rogan’s best work here comes when he’s lashing out from the floor.
norton and cruz very much the secondary characters but good too. cruz feels like she’s come from a different movie in a deliberate way; her cool euro remove is very much at odds with everyone else. easy to see why rogan and wilde and awestruck by her; norton’s character aspires to get on her level but never quite makes it. norton the least important of the four but gets a couple great comedic moments and one highlight monologue that’s especially great because it might be a contrivance or at least a deliberate bit of self-mythologizing (long sob story about the origins of his “hawk” moniker, immediately after revealing his initials are “HWK”)
wilde’s directing is great, too. whole thing is four people in one (huge + beautiful) apartment, but there’s a lot of really interesting movement, framing, blocking, editing… movie feels larger than it really is. from the very beginning with the jaunty ‘70s sitcom opening sequence (interposed shots of rogan commuting home and wilde prepping the apartment) there’s a real commitment to images that doesn’t feel showy or overworked but instead makes for consistently interesting images.
a movie about relationships, decay, disappointment, desire. it would almost be better if rogan and wilde were outright failures; instead they have to deal with the quiet disappointment that comes with reaching a plateau far below of where you’d dreamed. they have a beautiful apartment, but it belongs to rogan’s parents. rogan has a job at an okay conservatory, but he used to be in a band that looked like they would make it big. they don’t have sex; more generally, they’re just not very nice to each other anymore. the upstairs neighbors represent uninhibited desire in every form, so little wonder they spark such intense emotions for rogen (who beats down their door in the midnight hours to complain about the noise) and wilde (who makes a point to walk past their window, hoping to be seen)
cruz and norton are primary foils, at times bemusedly and sometimes instigating as well. the movie is upfront about showing some of the cracks in their facade (cruz criticizing norton’s terrible spanish is fun), and hints that their whole dynamic is on far shakier ground than the main couple’s (cruz met norton while serving as his therapist lol) but overall is largely interested in how they interact with rogan and wilde.
hard not to think about the drama in relation to this. two movies about a relationship cracking under the stress of a critical event, the crisis bringing longstanding problems to the forefront. located at different points int he relationship but some similar themes in both, most prominently the idea of acknowledging it’s not working and trying again, from the top this time.
can we start over? asks zendaya.
can we please do a reset? can you leave and come back in again? asks wilde.
if i had to think through the differences i would say the drama is about deciding to commit and this movie is about thinking through what commitment costs and has to offer.
maybe i’m a romantic but i read the slightly ambiguous ending as a reunion. just a single moment but that’s enough sometimes; you can come back together and make something beautiful together. framed from the daughter’s room, the living testament to their potential to create something good and lasting.