Director Olivia Wilde’s follow-up to Don’t Worry Darling hearkens back to her comedy chops in Booksmart while channeling the classic relationship driven comedies of Woody Allen
THE INVITE (2026)
★★★ OF ★★★★★ stars
The Invite, the latest film from director Olivia Wilde, which she also stars in alongside Seth Rogen, Edward Norton, and Penelope Cruz, is a solid comedic drama exploring what can happen when a relationship hits a dry spell after personal issues cause partners to slowly drift apart from each other. Wilde and Rogen play a couple who are in a slow funeral dirge in their relationship. Rogen was in a band that had one-hit wonder and peaked and now he and his wife live in his family’s old home while he teaches music at a private music conservatory and feels as if he is a failure in his dreams and work life and that has extended to his relationship with Wilde, who was his biggest fan and he courted her at the peak of his confidence. Now, that confidence is gone and their relationship has become a sexless one where neither is happy. Her only source of satisfaction has come in a chance encournter in the window with Norton’s character Hawk, where he has spotted her in the nude and this has led to some flirting between the two as Wilde has become attratced to him. One night, Rogen’s character arrives to find she has planned an impromptu dinner date between the two, which he is against as the sound their lovemaking has triggered him severaly and made him feel like an even bigger failure. The other couple arrives and then the night becomes charged as Wilde and Rogen’s couple air their laundry list of failures and shortcomings as Cruz and Norton present an invite – to be part of a swingers collective the two enjoy privately, with some spouse swapping to potentially happen that evening. Will this invite be a new chapter between the two to open up their relationship, oir can it potentially be the final nail in the coffin of their dying relationship?
Wilde directs this outing well, with the score punctuating the tension in her character’s failing relationship with Rogen and Rogen really nails the vibe that this is an old married couple on their last outing. Wilde guest starred on Rogen’s Apple TV show The Studio and the two has very good comedic chemistry there which really shines here. The little digs at each other and their desperate attempts to hide their growing dissatidfaction with each other, even over what color to paint their bedroom, really shows how bad things have got. Similarly, Cruz and Norton have a great on-screen pairing, with Cruz and Norton initially portrayed as the ultimate vampy couple that is open and swinging and have it all figured out but slowly revealing their failings and problems. The four play off each other excellently and the whole enterprise feels intimate but open, like a great little stageplay, or channeling something Annie Hall at times. The shared anecdotres and character moments shine and feel real and this is Wilde’s best directed piece since Booksmart. This should resonate well with couples as the struggles of long term relationships are real and the pathos here is earned and feel lived in.
The Invite is oneof the year’s best romantic comedies and the drama and star performances only reel you in further. Check it out in theaters now.