Every good party starts with expert hosts. This weekend, audiences will receive “The Invite,” Olivia Wilde’s couples dramedy, which revived a sleepy Sundance in January thanks to a riveting four-hander with her costars Penélope Cruz, Ed Norton and Seth Rogen.
The film thawed out critics and audiences in Park City with its examination of marital bitterness and unfulfilled fantasies (sexual and otherwise). It also sparked a tense bidding war before A24 prevailed, acquiring domestic distribution rights for more than $12 million, Variety reported at the time.
The host committee for “The Invite” surely includes screenwriters Rashida Jones and Will McCormack. The longtime friends and partners adapted Cesc Gay’s 2020 Spanish-language film “The People Upstairs,” unleashing director-star Wilde and her ensemble on a concept that underscores what makes Jones and McCormack’s writing special: storytelling rooted deeply in their own experiences, delivered in a style that’s brutally honest and never cheesy.
The movie tackles fertility, perimenopause, toxic masculinity, financial strain, female pleasure and disappointment in the way that many marriages eventually seem to. None of it plays like a parlor game or rage-bait, as the genre so often can.
