Olivia Wilde turns an indecent invitation into a riotously funny bout of domestic warfare, where an evening of sexual possibility does little to disguise the resentments already in the room.
2026 • Olivia Wilde • 107 min • A24 • Drama / Comedy
Joe and Angela are a couple on the edge. In the chaos that has come to characterise their relationship, they appear to us at war with the versions of themselves they have settled into over the years since they got married. Joe is exhausted. Burnt out, tired, and he comes home from a day of teaching only to collapse on the floor of their apartment. Meanwhile, his wife Angela dashes around in preparation for an evening she planned only that morning. There is an amusing undercurrent of distrust beneath their first exchanges, initially cordial but increasingly biting. The company they're expecting? The neighbours from upstairs. People whom Joe has come to dislike due to their penchant for earth-shattering orgasms late into the night.
The Invite's absurdity reveals itself long before the neighbours even arrive. Joe retreats from his own home, briefly reconsidering his approach to Angela in the hallway, then returns through the front door to sprawl out on the floor all over again. This reset does little to subdue the resentments that have made even their most perfunctory exchanges adversarial. Joe and Angela's negotiation over the terms of the coming evening builds to a crescendo under Wilde's increasingly claustrophobic direction and Devonté Hynes' insistent, clawing score.
Hawk and Piña's arrival constitutes a quiet intrusion into the domestic warfare Joe and Angela have come to routinely engage in, compelling them to perform an amicability that Joe initially refuses to indulge. His pointed remarks as Angela welcomes their guests inspire great pleasure in Hawk; he loves what he perceives as Joe's unabashed honesty, a revelation Joe uses to subtly taunt his wife. Angela, meanwhile, has spent her day ensuring the apartment is perfectly curated, purchasing a new rug, relocating furniture and even securing jamón to make Piña feel welcome, a gesture hilariously undone by the revelation that she does not eat meat. Or gluten. Or sugar. Something Joe more than enjoys learning.
The Invite (2026) • A24
The outward appearance of their neighbours is one of a couple entirely liberated, who have dispensed with the expectations that inform the relationship of their hosts. As Joe prepares to confront them about their consistent, animalistic sex late into the night, Angela falls over herself to stop him, placating him with tequila and talking over him, only for their guests to reveal that they have come not merely to apologise for the noise, but to invite them to join in. The proposition momentarily restores a camaraderie between Joe and Angela that has otherwise been absent. They retreat to share a joint, previously forbidden by Angela unless smoked on the roof, before returning to interrogate Hawk and Piña about their sexual proclivities, increasingly more curious than they are willing to admit.
The ensemble have remarkable chemistry, and the tight constructions of Jones and McCormack's script allow the four of them to exploit the hilarity that governs the relationships on display without sacrificing momentum. Wilde makes full use of the apartment, allowing characters to wander beyond the corners of the frame while her characters' voices continue to be heard from adjoining rooms. Her decision to frequently privilege the expressions of those listening over those speaking makes their reactions as revealing as the exchanges themselves. And as the evening unravels, the spaces within the apartment become increasingly suffocating, but Wilde's control of movement, her framing and the performances prevent this single-location comedy from falling into rote territory.
Meanwhile Joe, injured and furious, makes Hawk the focal point of his growing resentment, prompting Wilde to shift The Invite towards the bruising domestic hostility of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Norton responds with a monologue about his late wife, revealing the grief beneath his apparently care-free persona. Wilde asks her audience to exchange ridicule for sympathy almost instantaneously, a tonal transition that doesn't entirely feel earned by the preceding farce. But Norton's gut-wrenching delivery is undeniable, and even Joe's otherwise razor-sharp humour wilts, which forces the film to encounter something it cannot comfortably absorb.
The Invite (2026) • A24
The evening wears on and the liberation Hawk and Piña seem to embody begins to fracture. Their whispered exchanges in Spanish have long irritated Joe, but it is a correction from Hawk that exposes a resentment beneath their otherwise apparent ease. Piña explodes. Penélope Cruz gives the outburst a ferocity wholly disproportionate to its cause, reproaching Hawk for a condescension she has never returned when he botches Spanish. The discomfort settles over the apartment as Hawk retreats from the fold and Piña apologises, eventually.
In the fallout, Wilde frames Hawk and Piña at the thresholds of opposing rooms, the distance between them striking for a couple whose outward disposition has suggested such an uncomplicated reality. When they disappear, Joe and Angela are left to confront the possibility that their relationship, at least in its current form, cannot continue. Joe retires to his office, defeated, and Angela announces that she is going to bed. An evening punctuated by misadventure, emotional antagonism and a chaos they have otherwise come to expect from sharing their lives together settles into solemn solitude.
Joe finds himself at the piano. In The Invite's opening moments, we see the two of them at their wedding, playing it together, and while Joe has not touched it in years, he finds himself stroking the keys once more. Whether he is performing an earlier version of himself, or simply nostalgic for a time before the night they have had, Joe finds something in the tune he plays. And so does Angela.
The Invite (2026) • A24
Wilde's camera settles across the building's shaftway, peering through the window, and she doesn't burden herself or her characters with sentimentality. Instead, we are permitted to witness a closeness that has otherwise been absent throughout the film. Angela rests her head on Joe's shoulder, the two of them playing a tune tied to the memory of an earlier, happier time. After an evening so preoccupied with sex, this simple gesture of physical intimacy proves the most affecting. There is no promise or declaration of reconciliation and, ultimately, it feels as though it does not matter; Wilde's slow, slight exclusion from the world we have been invited to inhabit isn't preoccupied with what comes next. It is merely concerned with what is.