The Invite: A Real Wild Invitation

 

Olivia Wilde opens her film with a quote from Oscar Wilde, the writer from whom she took her surname. The rest is pure Mike Nichols with a touch of John Cassavetes’ microscope lens that captures even the smallest uncomfortable detail, the kind many people don’t want to see. Wilde gets the absolute most out of her cast, regardless of their backgrounds or experience. Like Nichols, Wilde seems to have learned a great deal from her actors, and they from her. 

Wilde felt she had failed with Don’t Worry Darling. To me, it’s a masterpiece. But this time Wilde decided to play it safe. She looked for a confined space, an apartment in San Francisco. She looked for a story that Spanish cinema had already told. She looked for a Spanish actress. And she looked for two actors who have absolutely no fear of placing themselves completely under the director’s vision and baring themselves entirely.

The Invite is the remake of Sentimental, an excellent Spanish film. Spaniards know how to draw out all the strange and uncommon things inside human beings without any shame. It’s no coincidence that Pedro Almodóvar is a legend of world cinema and that his best films were made in Spain. At some point Wilde must have watched Sentimental and felt the film was speaking directly to her, and to her recent divorce from Jason Sudeikis. You have to acknowledge Wilde’s courage in tackling a subject that addressed her own life so directly at such a complicated moment.

The Invite is a sex comedy. A doomcom. It’s the kind of adult European cinema that laughs out loud at American romcoms. Films like Materialists and The Drama seem to confirm that intimate cinema in the United States is entering a golden age. Wilde ensured the effectiveness of her film by including a veteran of Spanish cinema, one of Almodóvar’s iconic girls: Penélope Cruz. Seth Rogen rounds out the cast. He’s a fantastic actor who knows how to make you uncomfortable and make you think through comedy. Rogen is the heart of the movie. The story begins and ends with him. Wilde also included Edward Norton, an actor who is an expert at manipulation on screen, just look at Primal Fear, Fight Club, Birdman, or American History X.

Wilde’s direction is excellent, as always. We already saw her work on major projects with her previous film. It’s incredible the collective energy she’s capable of creating, energy that at times seems to spiral out of control. It’s not easy to lock four massive actors in the same room for twenty one days. This is the kind of cinema that Godard knew how to make like no one else during the Nouvelle Vague era.

Wilde once again managed to express her ideas about couple relationships, the clash between the modern and the old, and the emotional journey that this process entails. In Don’t Worry Darling she wanted to take risks, she wanted to make big cinema that would leave you thinking as you left the theater. In The Invite she becomes obsessive with her small laboratory experiment. And that experiment becomes as interesting as it is moving.

Don’t Worry Darling was absolute cinema. The Invite feels more like a meticulously staged play. It’s impossible to imagine the power of this film without Rogen. It’s almost impossible to believe that Rogen has risen above Norton, Wilde, and Cruz. Rogen’s growth as an actor under Wilde’s direction reminds me of Dustin Hoffman under Nichols’ orders. Wilde has rightfully become a filmmaker whose work moves us and leaves us eagerly awaiting her next film.