The Invite (2026)

Olivia Wilde: The Invite (US 2026). Olivia Wilde (Angela), Seth Rogen (Joe), Penélope Cruz (Piña), Edward Norton (Hawk).

L'Invitation / La invitación / O Convite / Meghívás / Kutse / Ielūgums / Kvietimas / Ha'Hazmana / Приглашение.

    US © 2026 Invite Productions, Inc. PC: Invite Productions, Inc., Annapurna Pictures, FilmNation Entertainment, Permut Presentations. P: David Permut, Ben Browning, Megan Ellison.

    D: Olivia Wilde. SC: Will McCormack, Rashida Jones – based on the movie Sentimental / The People Upstairs (ES 2020) written and directed by Cesc Gay based on his play Els veïns de dalt / Los vecinos de arriba (ES 2015). DP: Adam Newport-Berra – Panavision XL2 cameras – negative format: 35 mm – colour – 1.85:1 – source format: Super 35 – master format: digital intermediate 4K – release format: DCP. PD: Jade Healy. Cost: Arianne Phillips. Makeup: Jorjee Douglass. Hair. Christopher Fulton. M: Devonté Hynes. M supervisor: George Drakoulias. Soundtrack: see below. *** S: Niv Adiri - Dolby Digital. ED: Yorgos Mavropsaridis, Ant Boys [Anthony Boys]. 

    C: Seth Rogen (Joe), Olivia Wilde (Angela), Penélope Cruz (Piña), Edward Norton (Hawk).

    Consultant: Esther Perel. “She was much more than a consultant on this film, she was an oracle” (Olivia Wilde).

    Loc: San Francisco, California. 21 April – 21 May, 2025.

    Motto: "One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry." (Lord Illingworth in A Woman of No Importance [1893], Act III, by Oscar Wilde). *

    Dedication: "For Diane" [Diane Keaton, 1946–2025]. **

    108 min

    Languages: English, Spanish

    Genres: comedy, drama

    Festival premiere: 24 Jan 2026 Sundance Film Festival, San Francisco International Film Festival

    US premiere: 26 June 2026 (limited), 10 July 2026 (wide) – distributed by A24.

    Finnish premiere: 14 Aug 2026 – distributed by SF Film Finland Oy – Finnish / Swedish subtitles: Frej Grönholm / Jonas Fåhraeus.

    Viewed at Finnkino Tennispalatsi 13, Helsinki, 14 Aug 2026

PREVIOUS FILM ADAPTATIONS

Sentimental (ES 2020), D: Cesc Gay.

Vicini da casa (IT 2022), D: Paolo Costella.

Die Nachbarn von oben (DE 2023), D: Sabine Boss.

Et plus si affinités (FR 2024), D: Olivier Ducray & Wilfried Méance.

Neprilichnye gosti / Neprilitshnyje gosti (RU 2024), D: Goga Mamadzhanyan.

V dobrém i zlém (CZ 2025), D: Marta Ferencova.

Witjip saramdeul / 윗집 사람들 (KO 2025), D: Ha Jung-woo.

Official premise: "Joe (Seth Rogen) and Angela's (Olivia Wilde) marriage is on thin ice. When they invite their enigmatic upstairs neighbors (Edward Norton & Penélope Cruz) for a dinner party, the night spirals into unexpected places. Have they reignited the spark or lit the match that burns it all down?"

AA: The Invite is an offbeat, hilarious, controversial and taboo-breaking contemporary comedy about sex and marriage.

It feels completely original, although it is based on a Spanish play written in 2015 and already adapted for seven films in seven different countries before.

The director Olivia Wilde, the screenwriters Will McCormack and Rashida Jones and the actors have customized and interiorized Cesc Gay's play to the American idiom and set it in tolerant San Francisco.

The movie is character-driven, and there are four characters that matter. Angela (Olivia Wilde) and Joe (Seth Rogen) live in an apartment inherited by Angela. They are married with a 12-year-old daughter who is away at a sleepover. 

The couple upstairs consists of Piña, a therapist (Penélope Cruz) and Hawk, a retired firefighter (Edward Norton). They are free spirits and polygamous. Angela and Joe are monogamous. Piña and Hawk are hip. Angela and Joe are square.

Angela has invited Piña and Hawk to apologize for the construction noise she and Joe have caused because of the prolonged renovation of their historic apartment. In fact it has turned into a meticulous restoration project of which Angela is very proud.

To Angela's horror, Joe confronts the couple with a complaint of his own: the loud noise of sex upstairs. Piña and Hawk have sex all the time. Angela and Joe, their last time was a year ago.

This is just the start of a discourse which leads to revelations about sex parties, varieties of intercourse and an impromptu attempt at partner-swapping among the four.

The Invite offers an interesting contribution to the subject of "male gaze". Voyeurism / exhibitionism is among the taboos discussed. It turns out that Angela has a habit of walking nude past a window and does not mind that Hawk is watching. Whereas Piña has noticed in the elevator Joe's inability to prevent his eyes from wandering towards her admirable breasts.

The second taboo is polygamy and sex parties. The catalogue of consent grows into a humoristic feature.

The third taboo is the difficulty of a woman to climax in a heterosexual relationship. Joe is irritated by Piña's "spectacular orgasms", but Angela is genuinely intrigued by her uninhibited cries at night.

The biggest taboo is bed death in marriage. In this, the film-makers have been inspired by Esther Perel,  “much more than a consultant on this film, she was an oracle”.

The Invite is a great comedy and great therapy. Recommended for couples. Sex death is difficult / impossible to discuss. The Invite invites us to break the barrier. Sex can be reinvented at every stage of life.

It is a comedy of embarrassment in every way: Joe's awkward adventures with his folded mountain bike, Angela's unpreparedness to host a dinner party. More profoundly, it is a comedy of a multiple culture clash.

All this is but a surface. Beyond the slapstick and the farce, The Invite is a tender and humane essay on relationships. Gradually we learn key background facts such as Hawk's trauma: his wife has died of cancer, and Piña helped him recover. We also get references to the status of artists and people working in the field of culture today: "nobody in America can afford anything".

The cast is great. I single out Edward Norton because of his unique way of navigating offensive situations and always ending up in a place of dignity. His sense of humour is of the most refined kind.

The movie has been shot on 35 mm film by Adam Newport-Berra on Panavision XL2 cameras. A subtle, vivid and vibrant colour world has been maintained in the digital transfer.

The Invite is the first film directed by Olivia Wilde I have seen. I look forward to revisiting it and seeing also her previous films Booksmart and Don't Worry Darling.

 

* "The film opens with a quote from Oscar Wilde. While sharing a last name, Olivia Wilde is not related to the Irish author. A dual citizen of the United States and Ireland, Olivia Wilde derived her professional surname from Oscar Wilde while in high school to honor the writers in her family, many of whom used pen names." (IMDb)

** "Before the end credits roll, a message reading "To Diane" is shown. This is for Diane Keaton, who played director Olivia Wilde's mother in Love the Coopers (2015). At the Los Angeles premiere of this film, Wilde elaborated on the choice, saying she "really wanted to show this movie to Diane. I don't think that there is an Invite without Diane Keaton because she's in so many of the films that inspired this film. She is the first actress I recognized to kind of represent a totally unique and complex woman; she didn't fit any archetype, she was singular in her vulnerability, her complexity, her creativity. She's unlike anyone else and she was very encouraging to me personally, and I just wanted this to be for her."" (IMDb: The Invite (2026)).

*** SOUNDTRACK (IMDb)

I'm Confessin' (That I Love You)

Written by Al Neiburg, Doc Daugherty, and Ellis Reynolds

I'm Confessin' (That I Love You)

Written by Al Neiburg, Doc Daugherty, and Ellis Reynolds

Performed by Fabienne Delsol

Courtesy of Damaged Goods Records

By exclusive agreement with Heyday Media Group

High School Hero

Written by Ole Høyer (as Norman Dane)

Courtesy of APM Music

Coppélia: Act I - Valse

Written by Léo Delibes

Performed by Symfonický orchester Slovenského rozhlasu (as Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra), Andrew Mogrelia

Courtesy of Naxos of America, Inc.

Suite for Cello

Written by Gaspar Cassado (as Gaspar Cassadó)

Palladio: I. Allegretto

Written by Karl Jenkins

By Your Side (2000 from album Lovers Rock, on the cover of the single as "Sade By Your Side", music video D: Sophie Muller)

Written by Sade (as Helen Adu), Paul Denman, Andrew Hale, and Stuart Matthewman

Performed by Sade

Courtesy of Sony Music Entertainment (UK) Ltd.

By arrangement with Sony Music Entertainment

Our House – Demo (original song 1970, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young album Déjà Vu)

Written by Graham Nash (as Graham William Nash)

Performed by Graham Nash and Joni Mitchell

Courtesy of Iconic Artists Group

...

PLUS

Georges Bizet: "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle", the habanera from Carmen (1875), adapted from the habanera "El arreglito ou la Promesse de mariage" by Sebastián Iradier (1863), first believed by Bizet to be a folk song, mistake later corrected by him in the libretto.

The Economist 8 Nov 2025 cover story "The relationship recession". From the period from which statistics exist: less relationships than ever. Less marriages than ever. Less sex than ever. A crash in the birthrate.