The Invite <\/p>\n
\ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d7 <\/p>\n
Director: Olivia Wilde<\/p>\n
Cert: 16<\/p>\n
Starring: Seth Rogen, Olivia Wilde, Pen\u00e9lope Cruz, Edward Norton<\/p>\n
Running Time: 1 hr 47 mins<\/p>\n
Are drinks dos really so terrifying? Dramas such as Abigail\u2019s Party, Who\u2019s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and this unsettling four-hander from Olivia Wilde<\/a> suggest such events exist to open up the cracks in deceptively upright relationships. Stay in your couple bunker. Keep others out. That way miserable stability can be maintained.<\/p>\n The zippy screenplay from Will McCormack and Rashida Jones (adapted from the Spanish movie The People Upstairs) brings us among two well-off San Francisco residents, Angela and Joe. <\/p>\n Played with wired-up unease by the director and spluttering lack of co-operation by Seth Rogen<\/a>, the couple seem to get by on recreational squabbling. \u201cDid you forget the wine?\u201d \u201cYou never told me we were having guests.\u201d The sort of mid-level irritation that serves to distract from larger structural deficiencies.<\/p>\n If we were in any doubt that a crash was coming, Devont\u00e9 Hynes\u2019 overly insistent score \u2013 later to calm down \u2013 would surely give the game away. <\/p>\n The catalyst for destruction comes in the attractive form of the couple\u2019s upstairs neighbours Pi\u00f1a (Pen\u00e9lope Cruz<\/a>) and, ahem, Hawk (Edward Norton<\/a>). These scenarios always have fun establishing hierarchies. In Who\u2019s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? the younger guests were at a disadvantage to the older and madder hosts. Here the new arrivals, thanks to professional security and an unconventional personal harmony, have the social whip hand over those serving the crudites. Pi\u00f1a is a psychotherapist. Hawk used to be a firefighter. (He makes it clear we no longer say \u201cfireman\u201d.) <\/p>\n Angela kowtows as Joe threatens to bring up their neighbours\u2019 disturbingly cacophonous lovemaking. The noise alone keeps him awake, but more disturbing is the awareness that other people, very nearby, have a better sex life than he and his unhappy wife.<\/p>\n Pi\u00f1a and Hawk are a recognisable type in drama (and in life): the progressives whose performative frankness, expressed as if they are unaware others might be capable of embarrassment, serves as a weapon to beat down social rivals. <\/p>\n When they begin explaining precisely why there is so much noise, Angela makes a bad attempt at appearing relaxed whereas Joe, who at least recognises some sort of conflict is afoot, babbles like a kid who has stumbled upon his parents making out.<\/p>\n All four actors master poisonous set pieces in the comedy of unease. One might (if picking nits) complain that the social dynamics don\u2019t shift quite as much as they could. A few more unexpected alliances and secret betrayals might have upped the careering momentum. <\/p>\n