By Alice Preputnick; Photo Credits to Alice Preputnick
I have wanted to watch “The Invite” ever since it was released back in June of this year. It was finally added to HBO Max, and I was able to recently watch it.
“The Invite” follows the married couple Angela and Joe, played by Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogan, who invite the upstairs neighbors, Pina and Hawk, played by Penelope Cruz and Ed Norton, over to their apartment for dinner.
I did not like Wilde’s performance at all. With a plot that relies on authentic and real performances from the four lead actors, her acting felt very inauthentic and forced. When she was arguing with Rogan’s character, it didn’t feel natural. The way she said the lines sounded rehearsed, which completely takes the viewer out of the movie. Her facial expressions often felt like too much for some of the scenes. Rogan unsurprisingly had a very captivating comedic performance. Ed Norton and Penelope Cruz were great, with Cruz having the best performance of the four. She was believable and funny and really saved this movie for me.
The cinematography was definitely a standout feature of this film, and it’s primarily due to the fact that the entire movie takes place in Angela and Joe’s apartment. The apartment is stunning, and the architecture allows for some really cool shots. There’s a ton of Wes Anderson style symmetrical framing in most of the shots, and they look very good. Mirrors are all over this apartment, and the camera would show the action through them, which was also very cool and unique.
The color grading of this movie was not my favorite. The movie looked very dark and poorly lit in multiple different scenes. “The Invite” is an A24 film, and I know that sometimes their movies tend to be lit this way as a stylistic choice, but most of the time this falls flat for me. I have seen a good portion of their 2026 releases recently and this hasn’t been an issue, and I wish it wasn’t one for this film. If it wasn’t, I think I could have liked this movie more.
The screenplay for “The Invite” was incredible. The dialogue in this movie flows extremely well and feels very natural. I was initially skeptical when I found out that the whole movie takes place over the course of one night in one apartment, because I didn’t know if the writing would hold up. The whole movie relies on the dialogue and conversations between characters, and not on their actions. I was pleasantly surprised at how effortlessly the conversations flowed, which is all because of how strong the writing was. The film never felt like it was dwelling on something for too long, and when it did, it made sense because the characters were dragging something out.
Personally, I felt that this movie was average. It wasn’t anything super groundbreaking, and nothing about the actual story really stuck with me. I’ve seen better movies, but I’ve definitely seen worse.