The Invite

Olivia Wilde's deliciously funny and smart comedy about a couple who have the simmering war of their relationship interrupted by the sexy, raucous duo who live above.

(Editor’s note: “The Invite” will release wide including Indianapolis July 10. We thought we’d give you an early look during a slower week for new releases.)

You ever known — or been — that couple that seems to do nothing but fight? They grouse, scratch and tear at each other constantly, to the point you wonder how they ever could have even liked each other, let alone been in love. Joe and Angela are that couple. Their marriage is a simmering war.

Five minutes into “The Invite,” you know that the pair (Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogen) are headed for divorce, they just haven’t admitted it to themselves yet. But then they have some guests over, which happens to be the new couple who lives above them in their fancy San Francisco condo. They’re a bit kooky, and at first their presence does little but increase the tension between Angela and Joe.

But then things get even weirder and friskier. The other couple, Pina and Hawk (Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton), turn out to be not just unconventional but truly kinky. As in, they have sex with other people. At the same time. In a group.

And they want Angela and Joe to partake — thus the double entendre of the title.

What follows is a raucously funny farce that also contains unexpected notes of weighty relationship dynamics. Joe and Angela are forced to finally face their dislike of each other full frontal (pun intended) and decide what they’re going to do about it. They’ve spent years of obfuscation and misdirection, fooling themselves into thinking things were OK when they very much were not.

I laughed a ton, but also felt authentic anguish for these people. The real hat trick of this movie is to make you truly empathize with these characters even against a completely ridiculous, comedy-facing backdrop.

I think swingers are like serial killers. Pop culture talks about them a lot and movies love to feature them, but they’re actually quite rare. Personally, I’ve never been having sex with a woman and thought, “I’m kind of bored here. There’s just not enough going on!”

“The Invite” is also directed by Wilde, who’s turned into quite a filmmaker with this her third feature, after the wonderful “Booksmart” and the less-so “Don’t Worry Darling.” The screenplay is by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack, adapted from the Spanish movie, “The People Upstairs.”

I did sort of wonder why Jones, who’s quite a comedic actress herself, didn’t write one of the parts for herself. Wilde does give the meatiest role to herself as Angela, a high-strung mom who gave up her (unnamed) career to raise a child, except their daughter (conveniently at a sleepover) is 12 and doesn’t need mom so much. So she spends her days constantly redecorating their apartment, just to have a perpetual project.

Joe is a classic kvetching, complaining schlub for whom nothing seems to go right. He gave up his rock ‘n’ roll dreams 20 years ago and teaches music at a lackluster conservatory on the east side of the Bay. He inherited their home from his parents, but is very embarrassed about that, even though it’s obvious they could never afford such a place on an associate professor’s salary.

Right from the start of the evening, Joe’s in a foul mood. (In fairness, we guess it’s been a long stretch since his last good one.) His bad back is acting up, and he completely forgot about inviting the neighbors. He neglected to pick up a bottle of wine, while Angela has seemingly spent hours putting together an elaborate charcuterie board and whipping up a souffle. She even bought an expensive carpet just for the occasion.

In contrast, Hawk and Pina are very loose. He has retired from a job you’d never have guessed, and she’s a sexologist, which maybe you would. Turns out Hawk used to be a patient of hers, which seems rather unethical. His manner is very frank and probing, while she tends to be a little more challenging and darker in her moods.

Joe starts putting off heavy hostility vibes, but to his surprise Hawk just seems to drink it up and ask for more. Occasionally, he and Pina will speak to each other in Spanish, enjoying their own little mini-spats. But they seem to regard Joe and Angela as an intriguing lock to be picked.

The elephant in the room is the loud sex Hawk and Pina have been having in the middle of the night, waking up the downstairs neighbors. Joe wants to confront them about it, but Angela’s totally mortified, going so far as to literally stuff food into her husband’s mouth to shut him up.

Of course, eventually things will come out, but in ways we didn’t expect.

I can’t say as I was truly surprised at anything that happened. Watching this movie is like experiencing a fancy meal where you arrive at the table and each dish tray has a cover on it. But you can smell what’s under there, so when that part of the film is revealed, you knew it was coming. Then you dive in and it’s even tastier than you expected.

For example, Hawks’ name — you just know it’s going to come up as a big reveal later in the evening. Or Joe’s fraught relationship with music, the way he refuses to let anyone play the piano in his office or a particular record from his collection. And Angela’s seeming frigidity, which actually hides a boiling volcano of a woman who’s denied herself for so long an eruption in inevitable.

Even though I knew something was on the verge, I still relished the moment when it actually arrived.

This cast is so terrific, playing off each other with a wide range of emotions and complex reactions, that you feel like this scenario could really happen something like this. It helps that each thespian plays off their star persona to an extent — Norton’s eccentric observer, Cruz’ fiery sexbomb, Wilde’s frazzled feminism, Rogan’s dyspeptic jokester.

I’ll admit, I went into “The Invite” not expecting very much, and came out knowing I’d just seen one of the best movies of the year. This is one you definitely want to put in your RSVP for.