Middle age and its issues are coming for the millennials. Director Olivia Wilde’s entertaining new dark comedy, “The Invite,” gives us a generational twist on a formula whose most familiar example is “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” One couple invites another couple for dinner and provocative mind games ensue. This time, however, it’s millennial life choices under the microscope.
The host couple in “The Invite,” Joe and Angela, are miserable, but they haven’t yet admitted it to one another. About two decades ago, Joe (Seth Rogan) tasted success very briefly as the member of a rock band. Now he teaches at a local music school. His wife is quick to point out that he’s not a professor, but an “associate professor,” a distinction by which she carelessly slices his ego.
In the movie’s first scene, Joe can’t disguise his lack of interest in his teaching duties. He barely rouses himself to offer encouragement to an instrumental ensemble before rushing from the concert hall where they rehearse. Joe’s knee-jerk response to everything is negativity. It makes him difficult to like, but to the movie’s benefit, it also makes him a sarcastically humorous commentator on everything he encounters.
Angela, played by director Wilde, has channeled her art school training — and her dissatisfaction — into obsessively decorating their apartment. She flutters and fusses, trying to create a beautiful space for a husband who could not care less. Both face lives that are less than they had dreamed of, but instead of comforting or supporting one another, they bicker and belittle. While Joe and Angela’s querulousness could strain one’s patience, the screenplay by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack, based on a Spanish play and film, keeps things moving and amusing.
When the couple’s 12-year-old daughter goes away for a sleepover, Angela invites some upstairs neighbors for dinner. The invitation is not as innocent or spontaneous as she pretends. Those neighbors, Piña and Hawk, have been waking Joe and Angela in the middle of the night with the sounds of their exuberant lovemaking. True to his character, Joe is annoyed by the disruption. But Angela is intrigued, and she has been signaling her interest to the erotically adventurous neighbors. After the guests arrive, and as the evening evolves, the conversation turns to sex, and even cantankerous Joe perks up.
Piña and Hawk are perfect foils for the disgruntled married couple. Piña’s profession as a psychotherapist leads her to address Joe and Angela’s evasions and mutual hostility. Hawk is a retired firefighter embarking on a second career as a rolfing masseur, and his new-age demeanor unleashes Joe’s inner skeptic. For instance, Joe mutters about the name “Hawk” being pretentious.
Since I’m not a millennial, I can’t tell what may be distinctively different about that generation’s identity crises. “The Invite” certainly addresses those issues with a dose of good humor and affection. But as portrayed here, the fundamental concerns aren’t too different from those of other postwar generations. The characters, whether they admit it to themselves or not, want to be certain they aren’t missing out on sex, on success, on happiness. It’s surprising that the emotional struggles in the film are so familiar, even if the trappings are different. For instance, questions around sexual satisfaction and experimentation have been a common theme in films since 1969’s “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice,” and probably before. The major change here might be how eager, and relatively guilt free, the couple are in their explorations. There’s not much discussion about morality, thank goodness, but there is a sense of what might be emotionally unwise.
Wilde has directed two other films: a praised teen comedy, “Booksmart,” and a not so well-received thriller, “Don’t Worry Darling.” “The Invite” is skillful work. Just about all of the action takes place within a single apartment, and there are only four characters. To Wilde’s credit, the movie never feels stagy. The film is propelled by fast-paced dialogue, inventive staging, editing and admirable performances.
Wilde works well with the actors, pulling off the difficult task of directing herself in the role of Angela, a genuine comic creation. Rogan’s bearish insecurity hasn’t worn well for me over time, but I admire his willingness to take on a character who’s perpetually mean-spirited. Supposedly, the roles of Piña and Hawk are supporting, but they are onscreen almost as much as the principals. Two terrific actors, Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton, play the attractive couple. Cruz is direct; we never forget that she’s a therapist whose instinct is to confront feelings. Norton maintains a funny, blissful equilibrium, which makes a revelation about the source of that attitude all the more surprising and, in Norton’s performance, touching.
A jaunty ballad from almost a hundred years ago, “I’m Confessing That I Love You,” is used as an almost unofficial theme song for the movie. In my memory, the tune is upbeat, but the lyrics, if you read them, suggest that this confession of love contains a lot of uncertainty. It expresses notions such as “Do you love me in return?” and “Will you stay?” Eventually, “The Invite” makes clear that for Joe and Angela, these questions underline their lives at a pivotal moment. And, more poignantly, thanks to an evening with the neighbors, they realize the answers and hopes that they had earlier in their 20s may need to be reexamined. Perhaps together.
“The Invite” Rated R. Running Time: 1h 47m. Directed by Olivia Wilde. Written by Cesc Gay, Will McCormack and Rashida Jones. Starring Seth Rogen, Olivia Wilde, Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton.
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