The dinner itself is a messy and ribald look at marriage, says our review of “The Invite.”
Questions of happiness and fulfillment take center stage in “The Invite,” a barbed comedy about a couple at a bitter crossroads in their marriage. Angela (Olivia Wilde) and Joe (Seth Rogen) are further challenged by their upstairs neighbors who, over the course of a single dinner, amplify every marital tension with passive-aggressive relish. Wilde, the actress who served notice as a filmmaker with the puckishly insightful “Booksmart” (2019), then faltered with the 2022 “Don’t Worry Darling,” gets back to her funny-not-funny roots with this adaptation of the 2020 Spanish film “The People Upstairs.”
The tart script by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones feels like it was written for the nuanced personalities of this cast. Seth Rogen centers the ensemble with his large and loud everyman, Joe, a failed musician who teaches music at a middling conservatory. Angela is a soul adrift. What defines them most as a couple — and holds them together — is their preteen daughter and their collective unease with their station in life. Bougie problems, to be sure, but palpable and real. They also haven’t had sex in nearly a year, and that’s why the dinner invite to the newish couple upstairs is such a loaded gambit. Joe wants to confront them about the raucous sex that keeps them up at night, while Angela admires the woman’s ability to have vigorous and vocal orgasms.
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