REVIEW:
The Invite was okay. The premise, about two couples that meet for a diner party in one of their apartments and turn to talks of couple swapping is great. It’s one of those stories that make us all curious… what if this really happened? How would you react in this type of situation? And it’s a smart, well-written movie, in terms of dialogue. Even still, the movie definitely falls short of the mark.
The whole film takes place in one location on one night. That means it’s perfectly ripe for being used for a play, like say, “God of Carnage,” also about two couples meeting in one apartment. That play was easily turned into a movie, called Carnage, which unfortunately was not all that good. The fact is, having a four character movie that all takes place in one location is tough to pull off. The script has to be pretty incredible, and has to keep evolving in order to maintain the audience’s engagement.
The Invite is better than Carnage, and chalk that up to Seth Rogen, who is just a natural comedic talent. This guy can’t help but being funny. Even on interviews he’s funny. And in the Invite, you can tell that he wrote or contributed to a whole lot of his dialogue.
The movie is about these two couples, one played by Rogen and Olivia Wilde, the other played by Edward Norton and Penelope Cruz. Rogen and Wilde are our protagonists. We open the movie with just watching the two of them in their apartment, as she tells him that the other couple is coming over, and he struggles to peel himself up off the floor after carrying his bike back home. The arguments these two have are funny. Especially when they talk about the couple upstairs that makes all that noise having sex throughout the middle of the night. This is the couple they have invited to come over.
And shortly after that, that couple arrives. Now we get to some of the more tense or awkward conversations, like one in which the Ed Norton-Penelope Cruz couple apologizes for being so loud at night and Rogen says he hasn’t noticed. That’s when Norton and Cruz call him out, saying they know that he is aware of it. Turns out he knocked on their door once while they were having sex to tell them to be quiet, and the ring camera video footage on their door captured it. This moment is hilarious.
The dialogue is good, but at some point it gets to be enough. Enough talking, and now time for action. In this case, the action would be getting it on, or couple swapping, as promised. Only they don’t. They come close, but never really get there. Talk about leaving both the characters and the audience unsatisfied. They hit on the ideas of swapping and are all ready to do it, and then something happens. And it changes the trajectory of the entire movie, including what was promised. Yes, hooking up with members of the other couple is most definitely promised here. The movies tagline alone says “Anything goes.” Only here, anything doesn’t go, because just when it’s starting to go, it falls apart. This movie is anti-climactic to say the least. I like the idea behind it, but hate the execution. At least one of the two couples had to get it on, to make this one feel like they delivered on what they said they would. Without that, this movie is all tease and no reward. The dialogue was good, and the first half far excelled over the second. But in the end, we feel like we are left holding a deflated balloon that never really got off the ground.