'The Invite' review: Who's afraid of a last-minute dinner party?
Olivia Wilde's The Invite is a tightly wound, single-location marital comedy in which Angela and Joe host a last-minute dinner for their upstairs neighbors and discover that the real invite is honesty about sex, commitment, and a struggling marriage on the rocks. Early reviews frame the invite as a cunningly acted chamber piece—a witty, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?-adjacent comeback now in limited theaters from A24.
Key Takeaways
- AP film critic Jake Coyle rates The Invite 3.5 out of 4 stars, calling it a welcome modern twist on the drawing-room comedy of manners.
- The title refers not to dinner but to a mid-evening proposition after neighbors Pína and Hawk reveal their noisy upstairs life involves sex parties.
- Variety reports Wilde shot the film in 21 days, in sequence on film, after six weeks of unpaid rehearsal—treating it like a play.
- Wilde says Don't Worry Darling's 38% Rotten Tomatoes score liberated her to chase process over outcome on this project.
- A24 is releasing the R-rated, 107-minute film in select theaters rather than to streamers.
What happens in The Invite?
Wilde directs and stars alongside Seth Rogen as Angela and Joe, a long-married couple whose relationship is on the rocks. When Angela invites their upstairs neighbors—Penélope Cruz's Pína and Edward Norton's Hawk—over for an impromptu dinner, Joe arrives home without wine and without knowing the plan.
Angela has prepared a soufflé, a new rug, and enough anxiety to fill the apartment. AP's Jake Coyle notes that soufflé is for dinner, but much more is on the table. The evening escalates from passive-aggressive bickering to raw confessions once the neighbors explain the noise from above.
Why are critics invoking Virginia Woolf?
The New York Times titled its review "Who's Afraid of a Last-Minute Dinner Party?"—a nod to the classic marital battlefield play. Coyle writes that faster than he can say Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? you can predict quips, come-ons, and marital catharsis on a single-setting plate.
Wilde herself told Variety that Mike Nichols's film was her north star. She rehearsed like a stage production, shot sequentially in one apartment, and mixed comedy with a deeper study of what unhappy couples project onto others.
How did failure shape Wilde's comeback?
After Booksmart earned near-unanimous praise, Don't Worry Darling stumbled with critics and audiences. Wilde now embraces that swing: "If you go through that, the way 'Don't Worry Darling' did with a 38% on Rotten Tomatoes, there's liberation."
That freedom fed an unconventional production. The cast worked without pay for six weeks of rehearsal. Wilde shot on film across 21 days in story order—choices she says most directors abandon on day one of prep.
Is The Invite worth seeing?
Critics acknowledge you can sometimes feel the plot gears turning, yet praise the cast and Rashida Jones and Will McCormack's script for mixing perimenopause, paint colors, and Sade with thornier intimacy questions. Coyle awards 3.5 stars and calls the film baked to near-perfection, even when Wilde's Dev Hynes score underscores Angela's tension a bit heavily.
Wilde insists the film is not anti-monogamy—it is about allowing yourself to change. For audiences tracking how grown-up relationship stories survive in a streaming era, The Invite doubles as a case study in theatrical ambition; browse more at Future Tech & AI Wonders for where culture and innovation collide.
The Invite, an A24 release rated R, runs 107 minutes and is in select theaters.