Olivia Wilde’s The Invite turns dinner chaos into fate

Olivia Wilde’s The Invite kicks off with a miserable Seth Rogen struggling to get a folding bike out of a door, then escalates into a San Francisco dinner party hosted with mounting anxiety and total bad timing. With a script by Rashida Jones and Will McCormac

When Olivia Wilde’s The Invite opens, it does so with Oscar Wilde in the air—“One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.”

Then the movie cuts to Seth Rogen’s Joe, clearly very miserable, presumably very married indeed. The first problem isn’t a crisis of the soul. It’s his folding bike. wedged inside a doorway long enough for his students to stare—and for someone to mutter “what the fuck” as the moment turns into a spectacle.

From there, The Invite keeps changing its temperature. What looks like a straightforward setup—marriage is bad. just look at this broken man—quickly becomes something more calibrated. crackling. and mean in the way only relationship comedy can manage. And it arrives fast. with a dinner party that feels like it’s been scheduled by fate and sabotaged by anxiety.

Joe drags himself through his downbeat life with his folding bike very much in tow. His wife Angela (Olivia Wilde) carries her own strain. too—naturally anxious. and fixated on making their rare night of “company” go perfectly. The couple doesn’t have many friends and doesn’t have many people over. so tonight’s dinner with their upstairs neighbors is big enough to obsess over.

Angela’s plan isn’t subtle: she bought a new rug. stocked up on at least six kinds of cheese. and is making a fucking soufflé. Joe, meanwhile, can’t even manage to pick up wine on the way home. Barely inside, he’s thrown into increasingly nerve-shredding bickering, all while Devonté Hynes’ score plays loud during their back-and-forth.

Wilde keeps those worst moments funny and relatable without letting them slip into cruelty for cruelty’s sake. And she leans into her own physical comedy early—Angela’s reaction to a ruined dinner landing with comedic timing so precise it feels like a five-second switch that informs everything that comes after.

The performance isn’t only about Wilde, though. With just four stars, the film counts on everyone to carry weight. Rogen’s Joe becomes the straight man, often serving as the audience’s eyes as the situation tightens. Wilde and Rogen are good together. but the night truly shifts when the guests of honor arrive: Hawk (Edward Norton) and his girlfriend Pina (Penelope Cruz).

They’re the long-feared. long-desired neighbors from upstairs—mostly known to Angela and Joe through the very loud noises of their nightly love-making sessions. If Joe and Angela’s simmering resentment and hard-won affection is one side of the coin. Hawk and Pina’s weirdo sexuality and wacky intrigue is the other.

Hawk and Pina aren’t just there to observe. They’re into each other, and somehow, they’re also into the Joe and Angela show. Norton plays the role with obvious delight, edging out Cruz, who still gets her time to shine later in the film.

The film keeps stacking questions: why has Hawk and Pina come to this ill-fated dinner?. Why does Angela want them there so badly?. Why can’t Joe even pretend to be a decent host?. The answer is suggested by what the movie already tells us about these couples—miserable marrieds. sexually adventurous strangers—but Jones and McCormack’s script still makes the journey entertaining. steering the evening into a comedy of manners that eventually feels like a comedy of errors.

Elsewhere, the craftsmanship does a quiet kind of work. Costumes from Arianne Phillips set the couples up in opposition to each other, while cinematography from Adam Newport-Berra crafts interesting dynamics in artfully made frames that don’t feel showy or affected.

As Wilde splits the couples and brings them back again. the film shows different sides of each character and the roles they play inside their relationships. Angela’s nerves make way for giddy chemistry with Hawk. and the two even bond over their shared love of rugs—one of several running jokes that keeps the momentum moving. Joe’s mystified anger softens alongside Pina’s easy grace. And yes, the movie includes a moment where Rogen and Cruz smoke a joint together.

Wilde’s previous film. Don’t Worry. Darling. was driven by questions about the price of relationships. the cost of the lies we tell. the impossibility of really knowing someone. The Invite covers similar terrain, but answers it with far more insight and entertaining humor. There’s a particular rush to watching it in a packed theater—laughing feels like part of the plot’s motion.

Still, the meal doesn’t stay perfectly cooked. The film’s third act stumbles a bit, trading some of its high humor for darker emotions Wilde can’t quite navigate as deftly. There’s also, unless the reviewer missed it, a “tiny, left-turn mystery” about the true nature of Hawk and Pina.

For all that, the rest of the experience holds together: light on the soufflé, heavy on the jambon. It’s described as a truly adult comedy—with plenty to say and even more laughs to share. The reviewer’s verdict lands at a Grade: B+.

The Invite premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. A24 will release the film in theaters on Friday, June 26.

Olivia Wilde The Invite Seth Rogen Edward Norton Penelope Cruz Rashida Jones Will McCormack Devonté Hynes A24 Sundance 2026 film review