The Invite

"Did you buy this rug because the neighbours are coming?" A nervy couple (Olivia Wilde, Seth Rogen) invite their cool but intense neighbours (Edward Norton, Penelope Cruz) over to dinner. What fun it is to watch a film where the entire room is roaring with laughter. A chamber piece set around a dinner party is nothing new, and yet… something just clicked here that takes it to another level. The casting is excellent. All the actors understood the brief and ran with it in a way you don’t often see. The screenplay absolutely rips. There’s an element of surprise and originality to every line and every joke that makes it all sing. There’s clearly something very personal and urgent that Wilde wants to say with this and in its quietest moments it screams out at you. Yes there are wobbles where the film loses a bit of its confidence, but in its own way its flaws kind of give it texture. I read that The Invite was shot in order, and on film, and in under a month. Perhaps they should make films…