The Invite
- 3 minutes ago
- 4 min read
I have heard mostly praise for THE INVITE, with everyone breathlessly comparing it to everything from "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolff" and "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice".
Huh?
Mike Nichols and Paul Mazursky have nothing to worry about.
For nearly the entire film, I sat un-engaged, watching three very good actors work with what they've been given. That trio would be Rogen, Cruz and Norton.
The fourth member of the cast, Olivia Wilde, who also directed, saddles herself with one of the most absurd, unlikable, harsh, insecure and shallow women I've seen on screen in decades. The last time I couldn't stand a character on screen like this was Sandy Dennis in Neil Simon's 1970 film, "The Out of Towners". Congratulations to Wilde, she's triumphed over a dubious 55 year record.
We first meet Seth Rogen, who's quite good in the mostly dramatic role of College Music Professor Joe. He's a sad sack who hates riding his bike to school but apparently his wife Angela (Wilde) wants him to ride it anyway. By the time he gets home, he's already pissed off and ready to collapse.
But not tonight! Angela has decided to invite the upstairs neighbors over. The only thing that Joe & Angela really know about them is that the randy folks upstairs keep them up most night having wild, very loud sex at the volume of a jet engine.
Angela has spent a fortune on remodeling their apartment, which the characters go out of their way a dozen times to call "prewar" as if it carries some universal, pretentious weight.
She's also laid out a massive and expensive spread of food. Joe barely has time to get his protests to full volume before the neighbors show up.
Pina (Penelope Cruz) and her husband Hawk (Edward Norton) pop in, oozing sexuality blended with some socially suicidal brand of frankness that sets Joe off at every turn.
I spent most of these scenes wondering why Joe is still living with Angela. Wilde portrays her as a harping shrew who's disgusted with her husband and repulsed by who he is. Great relationship.
As the night (and the film) wears on, it just gets dumber and dumber, falling over itself to be clever and oh so BOLD! but growing cringe worthy to the point where Hawk and Pina (who are a fireman and a sex therapist) suggest they have group sex or just split off into swapped couples.
I won't describe what happens next, other than it's awkward (ooh look how BOLD we are making this film!!!) and it just sits like an absurd farce that wants so badly to be an intelligent, Woody Allen type comedy/drama. Speaking of Woody, I'd pay to see what he would do with this material. I'm sure it would be funnier. Also, Allen has written some of the best parts for Actresses of the past 50 years like "Annie Hall", "Manhattan", 'Interiors", insert any other six films here.
He would never write or direct Wilde into the corner that she paints herself here with her portrayal of Angela. Hawk's reaction to some of the things she says during their attempted moment of romance exactly mirrored my feelings watching her, repulsion and disappointment.
I was shocked when the finale and most of the film after that "let's have sex" debacle actually found some footing and made me take notice. It almost redeems the film, but in the end, doesn't.
Let's be clear about the other three leads. They are all very good. Rogen creates a three dimensional husband buried in his perceived failures, his Joe seems to only enjoy moments in which he's finally right about SOMETHING, ANYTHING.
Cruz is excellent, mysterious, sexy and intelligent. She is like a very dangerous spider luring Joe into her trap. Cruz owns the role and the movie. Norton is terrific as Hawk, a man so buried in his own self created mythos that he seems to love when Joe isn't buying any of his bullshit.
The three of them interact like humans, even when the dialogue seems too pat, too loaded in the barrel to be natural. Wilde's Angela, seems to have wandered in from another very unhappy planet filled with self loathing and angst, that she vomits all over the scenery in such a relentless fashion that you wish someone would just throw her out of the apartment, so that we can spend an evening with the other three.
I was in the minority on Wilde's last directorial effort, "Don't Worry Darling", which I found stylish, fascinating and intriguing. Loved her "Booksmart" before that as well.
THE INVITE seems like a lesser mind trying to channel Edward Albee, Mike Nichols and Mazursky, with a too small dash of Woody. That recipe just creates an inedible mess that splats on the screen and spends the rest of the film earnestly begging to be more than it is.
It's topped off with WAY too much of one of the most obnoxious, annoying music scores of all time by Devonte Hynes. What the hell did Wilde tell him in preparation? "Please make the score repetitive, shrieking and make sure it gets louder the more people talk. I want to make sure that key dialogue in their arguing gets buried in the stabbing strings. When you think it's too loud, double the volume!!!"
WTF?
Stranding Cruz, Norton and Rogen in this mess is a crime.
THE INVITE gets a D.
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