By Ella Saxton, Third Year, French
In the face of increased sexual conservatism in America, Hollywood is just getting hornier. 2024’s Babygirl and Challengers feature strong, sexually empowered women who demand satisfaction from their more-than-ready-and-willing partners, and the award-winning Pillion (2025) centres on a gay BDSM relationship.
Meanwhile, Olivia Wilde's other major sex comedy of the year, I Want Your Sex, portrays a heterosexual relationship between a dominatrix and her submissive partner. Unlike these kinkier offerings, usually starring young, able-bodied, unjustly attractive actors, The Invite will appeal to a more ‘mature’ audience. It’s less a shallow voyeuristic experience of eroticism, and more a contained, slice-of-life snapshot of the awkward intimacies and tensions (sexual or otherwise) between people who have loved and loathed each other for a very long time...
Originally a stage play by Catalan writer-director Cesc Gay, Rashida Jones and Will McCormack have finally translated Gay’s four-person satire into a film that begins as an almost Yorgos Lanthimos-style social horror (complete with sinisterly screechy violins). Angela (Wilde) is the neurotic housewife of Joe (Seth Rogen), a failed musician now reluctantly teaching music to uninterested students. To Joe’s chagrin, Angela has invited their attractive upstairs neighbours to dinner without telling him. Both constantly at breaking point, their deceptively lush apartment becomes a battlefield for them to take out their frustrations on the other, interrupted only by the well-mistimed arrival of their guests - the charming Hawk (Edward Norton) and the devastatingly sexy Pina (Penélope Cruz). Over charcuterie, shots, and sparkling wine, it soon becomes clear that the titular ‘invite’ is not just referring to dinner, as Hawk and Pina ultimately make an erotic proposal to the baffled Angela and Joe.
Wilde directs and stars as Angela, gleefully contorting her face into various expressions of disgust, surprise, and arousal as she watches her perfectly planned evening dissolve into chaos. Opposite her, Rogen proudly displays his acting chops by tempering Joe’s awkward humour with a deeper vulnerability. Irritable, whiny, terrified of social interaction, and clearly mesmerised by Cruz’s Pina, Joe is easily the most hate-able - and the most relatable. Meanwhile, Norton as Hawk, though initially appearing to be a suave retired firefighter, also taps into a softer side, underlining the importance of heterosexual men engaging in sexual exploration too. However, Cruz near steals the show as the supremely confident Pina, a sex therapist who becomes Angela’s role model for reclaiming her sexual identity. Funny, spiky, and threateningly squishing testicle-shaped olives, Pina provides a much-needed feminist and queer perspective on what is otherwise a film, for all its flirtation with queerness, mostly about repressed straight people.
Charles Hubbard
As a tight, claustrophobic, one-location drama, the script is integral to the film’s success. For the most part, it is suitably witty, observant, and, occasionally, devastating. Ironically (given the nature of Hawk and Pina’s offer to their neighbours), the dialogue flows best when the four act together, maintaining a stream of believably awkward banter. The frequent arguments between Angela and Joe feel deliberately stagey as they hurl bitter remarks at each other like stones. Overused points of contention - he acts like his father, she won’t let him have a cat, he can’t make her cum - feel impersonal; they could be applied to any warring couple. But maybe these seemingly minor grievances allow for greater audience relatability - even if most of us will never know the joy of being asked to join an orgy with Penélope Cruz.
Neither prudish nor overtly erotic, neither wholly tragic nor consistently hilarious, The Invite is still a hugely entertaining tragicomedy which sacrifices potential for more radical eroticism in exchange for an intimate analysis of ageing relationships and (mostly) heteronormative sexuality.
Featured image: IMDb / The Invite
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