The Invite

spoilers

It’s a rare feat when a movie can wet my eyes both from laughter and from sadness. The Invite is a comedy until it becomes a drama, the jokes perfectly weaved into the screenplay as the night unfolds on this singular evening. The echoes of an emotionally vacant marriage, the reckoning with one’s own failure, the yearning to be seen, as well as the yearning to just be left alone in your own misery; all things you’re left contemplating once the dust has settled and the laughs are quieted. 

For starters, we need to bring back the lost art of creative and visually engaging opening credit sequences. A stylized montage spliced up into squares opens the film showing Seth Rogen and Olivia Wilde, also the film's director, on their frantic pre- dinner party errands.

This movie is also a shining example in the philosophy of trailer avoidance and going into theaters blind, because so much joy is taken in the experience of watching the gradual erosion of the social expectations and conventional pleasantries that are expected in your typical dinner party invite. That’s the gem of where the humor lies here, in the absurd reality of being casually invited to an orgy by your apartment neighbors. And how plausible the energy is from the acting of Seth Rogan and Olivia Wilde, both awkward and lacking in self esteem in two separate manners; bumbling and pessimistic and neurotic and overthinking, respectively. While Edward Norton and Penelope Cruz play off them with their bourgeois sexual liberation couple energy. 

Olivia Wilde the director doesn’t exit the confined space of this apartment for the duration of the film. A limited use of space comprised of contrasting characters and a simple conflict inspires some of the best works of drama and episodes of television; 12 Angry Men, “The Pine Barrens” episode of The Sopranos, “The Suitcase” from Mad Men, “Fly” from Breaking Bad, and the list truly goes on. The two couples here offer that perfect foil to one another. Before this breaks down into that epiphanic moment after they overthink their way out of perfectly lined up sex and Penelope Cruz psychoanalyzes her host’s failing marriage in some off the clock therapy, the journey to this emotional climax is stacked with incredible one liners and situational humor humor. And come on man, it’s Seth Rogen.

The screenplay, co-written by Rashida Jones, is incredibly tight and dialogue driven, carried by the quartet of actors. A good score is an unsung hero especially in a genre like this but the high string violin notes are great in highlighting the awkwardness of a moment, you feel as if you’re anxiously in your head right there with them. I have yet to see the few other incarnations of Cesc Gay’s The People Upstairs in which this is adapted from, but I’m an American, dammit, so this is the one I’ll watch. It makes all the sense in the world that this story began as a play because the limited use of space gives off the vibes of a stage drama.

“We just wanted to see the apartment… and fuck a little.” It was a tear jerking (no pun intended) surprise to discover a simple invitation to a sex party offered a mirror to a failing relationship, an opportunity to vent years of repressed spite and disappointment. The one liners have you laughing until played out before you is the crushing reality that all the things you are too afraid to say are poisoning your own happiness. Bottled up thoughts calcifying once passionate relationships until that very weight takes a physical toll. A back quite literally breaking from a heavy heart, to borrow Pete Wentz's phrase.

The closing shot is beautiful, and an optimistic note to see us off. Rekindle that old passion, go pick up that instrument again, finish that book, play that game you fell off of, get back into making beats; you never know, you just may find your love again— or your love may find you.