"The Invite" co-stars Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogen used to disagree about his "very sweet" interpretation of the movie's final scene.Show Caption
Spoiler alert! We're discussing major details about the ending of Olivia Wilde's "The Invite" (in theaters now). Stop reading if you haven't seen the movie yet and don't want to know what happens.NEW YORK − Are they happy? No. Did they at least hook up? Also no.In blistering new comedy “The Invite,” quarrelsome couple Angela (Olivia Wilde) and Joe (Seth Rogen) spend an anxious evening in their newly renovated San Francisco apartment with Pína (Penélope Cruz) and Hawk (Edward Norton), their easygoing upstairs neighbors.As the tequila flows and flan gets devoured, Pína and Hawk reveal that they’re swingers, and the frequent loud noise coming from their place is actually them having sex with other couples. (They opt to rent a house if it’s 10 or more people participating.)After weeks of making eyes at each other around the building, Hawk and Pína ask a flattered Angela and Joe if they would also like to get it on with them. But their erotic encounter is short-lived, as Joe tumbles and blows his back out while sheepishly dancing to Sade.Fed up with her husband’s ineptitude and poor manners, Angela airs out her grievances with Joe at the end of the night: bemoaning how he no longer puts an effort into trying to have sex, and merely trudges through life with a joyless outlook. Joe, meanwhile, says he feels like a failure, and mourns the early days of their relationship when they were best friends.Pína and Hawk mysteriously slip out while Joe and Angela are in the kitchen, suggesting that the adventurous lovemakers may have just been figments of their imagination. And in the film’s poignant final scene, Joe despondently plays his piano − only for Angela to sit beside him and start plunking along.Olivia Wilde once had a 'cynical' take on 'The Invite' movie endingThe wordless sequence could be interpreted in a couple of different ways. Minutes earlier, Angela fondly reminisced on the night she met Joe. And as she begins to duet on the piano, it could signal that they’ve finally found their way back to each other and are willing to give their marriage another shot.But there’s also a less harmonious reading of the movie’s last moments: Midway through their song, Angela pulls her hand back from the keys and stares intently at Joe, listening to him before she rests her head on his shoulder. Does Angela realize that Joe is content to play without her, and that they’re simply better as friends?“It’s totally up to the audience to decide,” Wilde tells USA TODAY. “Even when we were performing that scene together, Seth and I had very different ideas about what was going to happen to Joe and Angela. He was adamant we would be together forever, which was very sweet and very Seth. I was more cynical, although I felt it was romantic to assume that two people can break up but still love each other.”Lately, “I have been buttered up and I'm a softie,” Wilde adds. “Now when I watch the movie, I'm like, ‘Wait a minute. I think they stay together.’ So it changes based on whatever you've got going on.”Esther Perel, a relationship expert and psychotherapist, served as a consultant on “The Invite.” Through her work, Perel has explored the intricacies of sex in long-term partnerships, as well as modern concerns around polyamory and artificial intimacy.“There are ways of addressing these timeless themes that are fresh and of our moment, and you feel that come through in this film,” Norton says. “In our discussion [with Perel], she set a North Star around the idea that you’re going to have great relationships in your life: either with the same person refreshed or with different people because you move on.”'The Invite' end-credits song recently sparked a real-life meet-cuteWith its single location and cast of four characters, the most obvious analog for “The Invite” is 1966’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” The movie also has strong parallels to 1967’s “The Graduate,” which ends with the defiant Elaine (Katharine Ross) and Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman) staring off into an uncertain future.“ ‘The Graduate’ has the all-time best ambiguous ending, or at least leaves you with a question you didn't expect to ask,” says Wilde, who directed “The Invite.” “We all dreamt of an ending that felt a little inconclusive and allowed for these conversations. I've polled the audience after every screening I've been to, which is dozens. And when I’ve polled them, it’s been 50-50 so far” on whether Joe and Angela remain married.Norton jokes that “The Invite” should be “a double-date movie minimum.” Or if you’re really feeling wild, go see it with two or three other couples. (“Then you’re basically Pína and Hawk,” he deadpans.)The film concludes with a demo of Graham Nash and Joni Mitchell singing “Our House” over the end credits. Wilde read on social media that the tune actually inspired a movie theater meet-cute, as Nash mutters profanity mid-song.“This guy wrote that he sat through the credits, and he said [the expletive aloud] at the same time as this girl across the aisle,” Wilde recalls, smiling. “They looked at each other, and then they met and went and shared a burrito. I was like, ‘Well, that’s it. We’ve done our job.’ “
