The Invite

I loved this. It’s a funny but surprisngly-deep look at relationship dynamics. It isn’t extreme, loud or overly-emotional (like Carnage). Instead, it’s like a sand castle eroding right in front of us.

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The premise is this: an unhappy couple invites their sexy upstairs neighbors over for dinner and the evening goes in a very unexpected direction.

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From the first moment, there is tension between the downstairs man and everyone else. He’s grumpy and miserable because he has isolated himself inside of walls made of his lack of acceptance of his adult life.

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As the conversation turns to the explanation for the super loud sex noises happening in the upstairs apartment the tension that has been building, that everyone can feel, brings the crumbling relationship down. Things can no longer go on as they’ve been.

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We see the damage that happens when one person in a couple refuses to accept the shape of their life and when the other person puts up with it for too long.  

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On the other hand, we are given an example of sensitive masculinity, interpersonal dynamics in which the relationship is held gently and engaged in with curiosity, and where both parties speak from the heart and say what they mean.

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Initially, I felt the casting of the couples was all wrong. Frumpy Seth Rogan with sparkling Olivia Wilde and aging, average-man Ed Norton with sultry Penelope Cruz, but as the story unfolds, the matching makes total sense.

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This movie, which is the American version of a Spanish film, would make a great play as all of the action happens inside in an apartment.

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