The Invite

Taking a little of Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, a sprinkle of Mike Nichols, a toke or two of stoner comedy silliness and a big huff of post-Woody Allen urbanite repression, Olivia Wilde’s latest slots into a rich lineage of hilariously awkward sex comedies. With a stellar cast  – Wilde, Seth Rogen, Edward Norton, Penélope Cruz – finding alchemy in their contrasting styles, it’s daringly close to the bone and frequently fall-off-your-chair funny.

And with apologies to Vanilla Sky stans, it’s comfortably the best US remake of a Spanish film yet. Cesc Gay’s Goya-nominated The People Upstairs is transplanted from Barcelona to the one-time home of free love, San Francisco, where fraying married couple Joe (Rogen) and Angela (Wilde) are finding love of any description hard to come by. 

The bellyaching, jaundiced Joe has got back to their luxe apartment from his unfulfilling job as a music teacher to find Angela putting the finishing touches on a platter of cheeses and ‘jamon’. She’s sent their kid to the in-laws and invited the upstairs neighbours over for a soirée; the same neighbours who’ve been keeping them awake with noisy late-night sex. Nursing a bad back and a burning desire for a spliff, Joe is horrified by the whole idea. She’s seriously high-strung; he doesn’t seem to have any strings left at all. Meanwhile, the score, by Devonté Hynes aka Blood Orange, scuttles through your brain like a spider in the bathtub. 

Amusingly, the bickering doesn’t stop when Norton’s ex-fireman (‘fireperson’) Hawk and Cruz’s sex therapist Pína knock on the door. They’ve heard the row but Hawk loves the energy. He loves the rugs, the new refurbishment, the whole vibe. Pína is exuberant and amused by this warring couple. Their easy dynamic – including whispered sweet nothings in Spanish –  drives Joe even more nuts. What do they have that he and Angela don’t? Apart from sex.

These four supreme comic actors get a stream of killer lines

It takes craft to make the ensuing interplay and bickering come together so effortlessly. The blocking and camerawork foreground the right characters at all the right moments, not leaning too heavily on the hurf-hurfing Rogen for easy laughs but manoeuvring around the smart but sterile apartment to reveal new layers to each of the characters. Will McCormack and Rashida Jones’ pinsharp script gives these four supreme comic actors a stream of killer lines.

It’s more accurate to call The Invite a comedy about sex – how it shapes our relationships, what happens when we don’t have it, and when’s the right time to bring up pegging – rather than a comedy in which people have a lot of sex. Honesty is the theme, the oh-so-challenging ingredient to any successful relationship, and it’s bracing to see it explored so, well, honestly. 

A late shift sees the film fully embrace its inner Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, shedding laughs for a sadder and deeper commentary on marriage that rings true but feels tonally out of step. But this is a real return to form from Wilde, who finds her Booksmart groove again after the misstep of Don’t Worry Darling. Cue it up and get the neighbours round. Or not.

The Invite had its UK premiere at SXSW London. In US theaters Jun 26.