The Invite

Part of my coverage of the 13th Chicago Critics Film Festival

THE INVITE   ***

Olivia Wilde

2026

IDEA:  The already shaky relationship of a married 40-something couple is further rocked when they invite over their enigmatic upstairs neighbors. 

BLURB:  As long as there are human relationships, there will be appeal to stories like The Invite, which turns our social foibles into uproarious theater and reflects back at us the desires, fears, and frustrations that are difficult to confront, or even acknowledge, outside the safe outlet of art. Which is to say that The Invite is not unique (if a remake of a film based on a play could ever be called that!), but it is terribly evergreen, and it’s deftly attuned to both how gratifying and discomfiting it can be to watch relationship drama roil under the proverbial microscope. And boy does this cast have a field day with it! Each actor chews voraciously into Rashida Jones and Will McCormack’s zesty script, lacing their deliveries and gestures with all manner of derision, passive aggression, or sexual desperation. Olivia Wilde nails the wild-eyed, fast-taking neuroticism and Seth Rogen the sarcastic, disillusioned surliness; as the disruptors, Penélope Cruz radiates sinuous, almost otherworldly sensuality while Edward Norton projects the calmly mysterious authority of a man’s man who’s also super into rugs. The near-constant interpersonal fracas is structured (literally) by the stylish production design, cinematography, and editing. The placement of an open window or a wall takes on heightened importance in a work so much about perspective, and how it often takes other people to show us different ways of looking at ourselves. This process results in quite the mess in The Invite, but the film poignantly suggests that sometimes it’s the mess that leads to the conversations that need to be had.