{"id":430309,"date":"2026-01-26T06:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T06:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/430309\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T06:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T06:06:08","slug":"olivia-wilde-and-seth-rogen-go-to-psychosexual-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/430309\/","title":{"rendered":"Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogen Go to Psychosexual War"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to UNMISSABLE<\/a>, the Daily Beast\u2019s Obsessed\u2019s guide to the one thing you need to watch today. Whether it\u2019s the most gripping streaming show, the most hilarious comedy, the movie which you\u2019ll never forget, or the deliciously catty reality TV meltdown, we bring you the real must-see of the day\u2014every day. Sign up for our daily UNMISSABLE newsletter now<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Olivia Wilde\u2019s third behind-the-camera feature (following Booksmart and Don\u2019t Worry Darling) sports four excellent lead performances\u2014including hers\u2014that turn this combative dramedy (premiering at the Sundance Film Festival) into a hysterical, insightful, and ultimately moving portrait of the difficulties of keeping long-term relationships alive.<\/p>\n

\"PARKOlivia Wilde (L) and Seth Rogen attend The Invite After Party with Casamigos at The Cabin On Main Street, Sundance Film Festival 2026 on January 24, 2026 in Park City, Utah. Tommaso Boddi\/Getty Images for Casamigos <\/p>\n

A modern twist on Who\u2019s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? that adds a few momentous sexual wrinkles to its template, The Invite\u2014a remake of the 2020 Spanish comedy The People Upstairs\u2014takes place almost entirely in the San Francisco apartment of Joe (Seth Rogen) and Angela (Wilde).<\/p>\n

Upon arriving home from work following a lengthy and arduous ride on his folding bike, Joe collapses on the foyer floor, moaning about his chronic back pain. That\u2019s not the sole thing he\u2019s soon decrying, since Angela reminds him that tonight is the night they\u2019re hosting their upstairs neighbors for dinner\u2014a get-together for which Angela has prepared a lavish spread and purchased a new living room rug.<\/p>\n

Joe doesn\u2019t remember being told about this event and didn\u2019t buy the wine Angela apparently asked him to pick up, and her annoyance amplifies as her music-teacher spouse eats the cheese she\u2019s serving, tries to convince her to cancel, and complains about their impending guests, who have been driving him mad with their \u201cfloor-shaking animal f–king.\u201d <\/p>\n

Angela is less perturbed about this noise because she covets the scream-inducing orgasms she hears through the ceiling, just as she admires her female neighbor\u2019s beauty. Joe and Angel\u2019s bond is a tense one, and their bickering quickly reaches a crescendo, at which point, in amusingly ill-timed fashion, their company arrives.<\/p>\n

That would be Pina (Pen\u00e9lope Cruz) and Hawk (Edward Norton), whose ridiculous name Joe immediately ridicules. Rogen\u2019s malcontent finds plenty of additional things distasteful about Hawk, since he\u2019s a soft-spoken nice guy who responds to his host\u2019s mockery with unflappable friendliness. <\/p>\n

Awkwardness abounds at the start of this meet-up, as Pina and Hawk could hear Joe and Angela arguing through their door. Angela\u2019s discovery that Pina doesn\u2019t eat dairy, grains, or meat\u2014including the Spanish jam\u00f3n she bought to impress her\u2014exacerbates the borderline-calamitous mood. So too does a badly burned souffl\u00e9 that, with a bit of hilarious sleight of hand, Angela swiftly, nonchalantly tosses in the garbage before Pina or Hawk notice the ruined dish.<\/p>\n

The Invite is all talk and little truth, at least when it comes to Joe and Angela. Showing off the expansive changes recently made to their apartment, the latter puts on a performance intended to wow her guests and to offset her fears about herself, her home, and her marriage. The former, on the other hand, can barely stifle his grievances about Pina and Hawk\u2019s carnal cacophony. <\/p>\n

Working from Rashida Jones and Will McCormack\u2019s witty and generous screenplay, Wilde gives all four of her stars ample opportunities to make a distinctive impression, with Norton\u2019s emotive and attentive Hawk revealing that he\u2019s a former firefighter who\u2019s now infatuated with rugs, and Pina radiating effortless eroticism while discussing her work as both a psychologist and, suitably, a sexologist.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

As they settle in Joe and Angela\u2019s living room, the quartet divulges details about their lives (such as Joe\u2019s rock-band past), thereby providing context for the fraught dynamics at play, and the film\u2019s writing is so astute and humorous that it\u2019s a shame Wilde\u2019s framing is look-at-me invasive. <\/p>\n

Using mirrors, doorways, shallow focus, and the edges of the screen to literally separate Joe and Angela as a means of reflecting their estrangement\u2014a tack that\u2019s in sharp contrast to the compositions featuring Pina and Hawk\u2014The Invite proves a study in self-consciousness, and that extends to the anxious strings of Devont\u00e9 Hynes\u2019 score. It\u2019s not that these tactics are, in light of the story, inapt. Rather, it\u2019s that they\u2019re employed with such incessant aggressiveness that they\u2019re intensely distracting and radiate a measure of insecurity that\u2019s at odds with the confident script.<\/p>\n

Despite Wilde\u2019s overcompensating stewardship, The Invite is a comic rollercoaster in which Angela, Joe, Pina, and Hawk circle each other, pair up, square off, and come back together to unpredictable ends. The film\u2019s ebb and flow is tumultuous but assured, and the cast makes the most of their meaty roles. Rogen\u2019s sarcastic wisecracks are laced with barely suppressed hostility that electrifies his rapport with the calm and composed Norton, and Wilde is equally adept as a wife and mother who\u2019s so miserably high-strung that even the slightest compliment brings her to tears. <\/p>\n

\"OliviaOlivia Wilde, Edward Norton and Seth Rogen at IndieWire Studio Presented by Dropbox at Sundance on January 25, 2026 in Park City, Utah. Clayton Chase\/IndieWire via Getty Images <\/p>\n

Of the four, Cruz is the most straightforward, her seductive Pina a more familiar type. The longer this night goes on, however, the more she reveals unique layers that speak to the proceedings\u2019 focus on harmony and unrest, pleasure and anguish, candor and deception, and love and desire.<\/p>\n

The Invite roils its waters by dropping a bombshell twist at its midway point that complicates things to an uproarious and surprisingly emotional degree. It also grants its actors new, fruitful avenues to explore. No matter how they\u2019re matched in a given scene, Rogen, Wilde, Norton, and Cruz exhibit alternately playful and hostile chemistry, and by the film\u2019s conclusion, they manage to wring poignancy from the hurt, grief, resentment, and longing at the root of Joe and Angela\u2019s on-the-rocks union.<\/p>\n

Though its direction never quits trying to get in the way, The Invite remains droll up until the bitter end, when scorched-Earth vitriol exposes the genuine divisions between its antagonistic protagonists. Nevertheless, with a series of beautifully tender closing notes, it illustrates that honesty is the key to a successful marriage\u2014and that, even in the face of deeply rooted acrimony, it\u2019s possible to achieve, per Angela, \u201crenovations without changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obsessed with pop culture and entertainment? Follow us on Substack<\/a> and YouTube<\/a> for even more coverage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to UNMISSABLE, the Daily Beast\u2019s Obsessed\u2019s guide to the one thing you need to watch today. Whether…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[88,206,139162,130645,12649,98265,204266,193486],"class_list":["post-430309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-olivia-wilde","tag-penelope-cruz","tag-seth-rogen","tag-sundance-film-festival","tag-unmis","tag-unmissable"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}