The Invite (2026) by Olivia Wilde is confrontational and truthful in a touchy way… and I can desperately appreciate that…

The Invite is stringently thought out and confident in its attempt to depict the inside outs of a fading marriage whereby passion has been overthrown by responsibility, self-doubt, despair, and loneliness. To put it simply, one’s goal to truly love ceases, and instead the goal has become to live as Angela (Olivia Wilde) and Joe (Seth Rogen) seamlessly portray in a decorated and newly renovated apartment suite overnight.

To Joe, the paintings, carpets, and pieces of art that adorn his home walls are merely pieces of stuff. To Angela, this “stuff” is her language, her pastime, a passion long lost that now settles for decorating her home because that’s just where life leads her. These differences are not merely the distinguishing factors between the two. Joe’s overly truthful persona is just as realistic as a deadbeat, who feels but never admits he’s overly doomed to the misery of his failure in becoming a successful band musician, now teaching at a crappy conservatory instead. While Angela is quite the opposite, upbeat, a kind of dress-to-impress individual with the desire to meet others and stay in the conversation, as if she doesn’t, she might just be worried she’ll be permanently left out.

The film quickly reveals that as Joe gets home, Angela reminds him that the upstairs neighbours are coming to visit for the night. Joe is surprised, but is reminded by Angela that she already reminded him the day before about these plans. While Joe can’t seem to remember about it, we come to find that Angela did not tell Joe at all, and his struggle to remember the conversation makes sense. We get the sense, after seeing Joe’s upset about them coming over, that even if she had had this conversation, no progress or successful outcomes could result from that conversation if it indeed had occurred.

With Joe’s and Angela’s 12-year-old daughter, Maggie, who is at a sleepover elsewhere, the two are simply left alone with the upstairs neighbours, who arrive at their door during a heated conflict over the neighbours coming over in the first place. Angela opens the door to greet and welcome the neighbours, Pina (Penélope Cruz) and Hawk (Edward Norton), into the flat. Joe, instead of greeting the neighbours, is doing the absolute minimum, which in this case is just being there, finding things to criticize, and telling the truth about how he feels about the neighbours, which Angela doesn’t want Joe to express.

Joe’s dislike stems from the loud noises Pina and Hawk make overnight while performing acts of sexual activity, which supposedly sounds like monsters going at it, which Joe simply can’t accept and come to terms with because it disturbs him at 4:00 in the morning. Angela dismissed Joe and his efforts because she is worried that if Joe does admit to the neighbours, it’ll make things awkward and may disturb Pina and Hawk’s intimacy. It’s almost as if Angela is longing for something Pina and Hawk have, though she can’t have it, and so she does her best to preserve it elsewhere for someone else.

As the night goes on, some secrets get revealed as to what those sounds truly are, and Joe and Angela are surprised by the events taking place above their heads. Joe almost forgives the two, but reminds them to try and keep it down when it happens again. Though, as the secret is revealed, a dirty idea plagues the group of 4, and as it slowly comes to fruition, Joe’s back lets out, seemingly making the night awkward and unaccomplished. This leads to arguments, and the sad reality of what is left in Joe’s and Angela’s marriage.

The film works as a kind of therapy session, while maintaining an adult comedic tone that touches on the nuances of having conversations about one’s marriage and its longevity, as the two of them are confronted about it in the presence of the upstairs neighbours.

The entire thing is a kind of tale of reawakening. It comes to show that in the end, people need a kind of refresher, a kind of awakening to the reality that we face, instead of the reality we perceive we face, which can get so tangled in the ruckus of the moment, with a focus on all of the cons instead of the pros, that the cons plague the existence and well-being of someone.

67/100

By Nava Medikonda

https://letterboxd.com/navaplayz/