Good fences make good neighbours, as the well-worn adage tends to go. There’s something very peculiar about the relationship we develop (or don’t develop in many cases) with the people who live in our proximity, almost as if there’s an unwritten social code that we all have to follow in some way, simply by virtue of sharing a specific space with people who are often complete strangers. Yet, it can be fascinating to see how this dynamic works in practice, and many fantastic works of art have been constructed based on the premise of examining how different people interact with one another in certain social situations. Olivia Wilde clearly finds a lot of value in the idea, as evident by The Invite, her most recent directorial outing (and based on this and her previous two films, she’d clearly becoming quite an intriguing voice in contemporary cinema), in which she, along with screenwriters Rashida Jones and Will McCormack, adapt Sentimental by Cesc Gay, in what is the fifth remake of the prolific writer’s subversive and challenging marital satire. In this film, we are introduced to Joe, a self-pitying music teacher, and his eccentric wife Angela, as they prepare to get visitors, namely Pína and Hawk, their upstairs neighbours. Seemingly an impromptu visit (although the amount of work Angela has put into the preparations says otherwise), Joe is blindsided by the fact that he has to spend an evening being friendly to people with whom he has a bit of an adversarial relationship (all going back to their tendency to make quite a bit of noise), but as the evening progresses, everyone opens up and make fascinating discoveries about one another, revealing that there is much more to each of them than initially meets the eye. A wickedly funny film that retains the spirit of Gay’s masterful original, while also going in its own unique direction, The Invite is a tremendous achievement, a seemingly simple piece of filmmaking that never feels pretentious or too on-the-nose, but has an astute awareness of both the collective cultural pulse and the role we play in defining it that makes this an exceptionally captivating comedy that gradually and methodically reveals so much more about itself than anyone may have initially anticipated based on a cursory glance at the premise.

No one can truly be considered an expert on relationships, so there’s never been any universal declaration of what a happy marriage should look like, despite some opportunistic people feeling that their opinion is worth more than others. However, it is generally agreed that every healthy relationship (which doesn’t only include marriage, but any close relationship between two or more people) will have its fair share of conflict, since it’s only natural for people to clash – it’s not about avoiding these moments, but rather not allowing them to spiral out of control and dismantle the affection at its core. The Invite is built along this very concept, taking a very simple premise of two couples spending a night in each other’s company, and focusing on the tensions that flare up almost immediately. It’s interesting how the film reworks a very specific dynamic – the long-term married couple are shown to be constantly in combat with one another, getting on their nerves and just seemingly lacking any real love for one another based on what we see in their interactions, while the more liberal couple (who are not married) have only been together for a year, and are shown to be far more caring of one another. The idea that a relationship loses passion the longer two people are together is certainly a very common sentiment, and one that has been explored extensively. However, this is not all that is being explored throughout this film, since while it is primarily about two couples engaging in a subtle (and sometimes quite overt) battle of the wits, The Invite has many more layers in how it examines these people and what precisely keeps them together. It’s hardly surprising that the climactic moments find the film acknowledging that a perfect relationship does not exist, and that our soulmate is not someone with whom we always get along, but rather can be vulnerable, open and honest with each other. The film deftly avoids the tacky technique of inverting the dynamic between the couples, such as implying that Joe and Angela truly love each other while Pina and Hawk (the supposed gold standard for a happy couple) have their entire relationship built on nothing particularly special. Instead, the film just shows how both couples ended up exactly where they needed to be, spending their lives with the person who understands them the most, even if this sometimes takes on quite an unconventional form at the best of times, which is where The Invite finds some of its most fascinating observations coming into play.

The characters in the original play are so well-written that we can understand why so many adaptations have been made, since many actors would crave such intriguing, complex roles.  This version isn’t any different, casting a quartet of actors who we may never have expected to see in such a film, but who have incredible chemistry and a willingness to plumb the emotional depths of this film in quite an engaging way. Wilde directs herself as a lead for the first time (having taken on a smaller supporting role in Don’t Worry Darling), and this is career-best work for her on both sides of the camera – as an actor, she’s done some exceptional work, but has not been given such a platform for herself where she can truly and relentlessly lean into a complex character. She’s exceptionally gifted, and watching her in The Invite makes us wonder why she has been working for two decades but yet has rarely been given the chance to lead many films, since she is extremely magnetic, as well as having a depth that is coveted by so many other performers of her generation. Seth Rogen is also doing incredible work as Joe, and his evolution as an actor has been fascinating to watch, since while he does still play in a familiar key for the most part, he’s also abandoned some of the more questionable techniques that limited him in earlier works, embracing a more endearing and level-headed approach while still being as unexpectedly charming as ever. The other half of the central quartet are brought to life by two veteran actors, namely Penélope Cruz, who is having more fun with a performance than she has in years, and Edward Norton, who proves that he is still one of our finest living actors despite a recent drought in more challenging works. We never quite understand who Pina and Hawk are, which is entirely by design, and both Cruz and Norton are brilliant at navigating that ambiguity – they’re confrontational and possess adversarial qualities, but they’re never painted as the villains. Both of them have a few wonderful monologues throughout the film (and Norton’s moment where he reveals his past is the film’s most unexpectedly emotional moment), and while they do ultimately exist in service of Rogen and Wilde (to the point where the slightly vague ending makes us wonder if these are real people or just a shared hallucination built around a seemingly perfect couple), there’s so much wonderful work being done, the whole cast being exceptionally copacetic and bringing these complex ideas to life beautifully.

There was an inherent challenge that The Invite (much like the other remakes of Gay’s original film) had to confront: this is a story that originated as a play, and considering it takes place within a single location over the course of one evening, featuring a core quartet of actors without any notable supporting players makes its stage origins abundantly clear. The writing is sharp enough that a very simple, straightforward “filmed play” approach would’ve been understandable, even if it’s not particularly interesting or engaging. Wilde therefore had her work cut out for her in the process of finding a way to keep the spirit of the original material while also not just allowing the dialogue to carry the entire film, choosing to craft what proves to be a far more durable, complex work that has some directorial authority behind it. The fact remains that, as gifted as she is, Wilde is still a somewhat newcomer when it comes to direction, with one film being massively lauded and the other the very definition of divisive, so she had a lot to prove with this film. There’s only so much even the most seasoned of veterans could do with this material in terms of making it cinematic, and Wilde proves her mettle by taking the opportunity to experiment where she can – some of it requires a lot of dynamic camera work (in terms of both composition and colouring) in an effort to not just make the film look like a recorded version of a play. There’s a lot of emphasis on the space, which almost becomes a character all on its own, going from a seemingly ordinary apartment to a labyrinth navigated by this group of characters as they engage in a game of existential cat-and-mouse, which leads to some fascinating observations. It also helps that Wilde knows how to work through a number of different emotions, being aware of when to lean heavily into the comedy, or when to add slight flourishes of sentimentality to soften the often outrageous tone that could have derailed the more interesting message beneath the surface. It’s a tremendous piece of filmmaking, and Wilde once again proves that she is absolutely someone to watch going forward.

Perhaps it is too intensely laudatory, but The Invite often plays like a version of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf if it was made by Ingmar Bergman, as filtered through a 21st-century sensibility. It’s a strange comparison, but one that begins to help us understand this film and not only what it is trying to achieve, but also avoid in terms of its execution, since this is a far more layered piece of filmmaking than we would expect at a glance. What starts as a seemingly simple comedy-of-errors about two couples trying to connect with one another while inadvertently revealing their own romantic insecurities and underlying imperfections eventually evolves into a beautifully poetic depiction of the power of love, and how a good relationship is worth fighting for, even if it can seem hopeless at times. Wilde, along with Jones and McCormack, do exceptionally well in adapting Gay’s original play, making it feel fresh and invigorated, rather than just an attempt to replicate what has proven to be one of the most unexpectedly important texts of the current decade, based on the sheer number of times we’ve seen it adapted to film (and I would not be surprised to see a dozen more versions spring up in the coming years, since the idea of taking such a simple premise and using it to explore cultural nuances is absolutely fascinating), while also being incredibly original in its own way. There’s very little to criticise about The Invite ­- the writing is sharp, with every joke hitting the target and the more emotional moments feeling genuine, helped along by the four performances that anchor the film, making it seem so much more plausible and engaging than many of us have have anticipated at first. As a whole, The Invite is a tremendously entertaining film, being a wildly funny but also very meaningful glimpse at love and relationships – quite possibly being the funniest film on the subject since Albert Brooks Modern Romance – while also being a brilliant piece of existential commentary, proving that there is always something to be said about a film that is willing to critically engage with some challenging topics, and giving clear evidence that there’s nothing quite as inspiring as a simple story told exceptionally well.