Review: ‘The Invite’ is a smart comedy with deep, uncomfortable truths
2026 / Dir. Olivia Wilde / 2026 Chicago Critics Film Festival
Rating: 4/5
Watch if you like: The Drama, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, hating your Bohemian, free-spirited couple friends whose lives seem so much happier than yours but do obnoxious things like go on crystal-healing retreats in the Mojave desert.
Olivia Wilde’s third feature is hands-down the funniest movie I’ve seen in theaters in years. An intelligent comedy for adults that astutely dissects what it’s like to both love and hate parts of your long-term partner, Wilde and Seth Rogen star as Joe and Angela, a couple only held together by their child and years together. The titular “invite” is to their upstairs neighbors, the unmarried Pina (Penélope Cruz) and Hawk (Edward Norton), whose explosive sexual escapades keep them awake each night. They’re polar opposites as couples, and those differences break open the unsaid tension between Joe and Angela that’s been stewing for years.
While the opening, before Pina and Hawk arrive, is a pretty exhausting slugfest between Joe and Angela over their impending guests, the film quickly finds its groove once they arrive. Brilliantly written dialogue by screenwriters Will McCormack and Rashida Jones is expertly handled by the cast—there’s no weak link here—with often multiple layers of jokes and retorts building to a hilarious crescendo before starting again. Wilde and the cast expertly handle constantly shifting tones and power struggles, revealing some deep, uncomfortable truths about whether it’s even possible to share a life with another person. Be warned: if you see this with your significant other, you might be in for a rough night when you get home.