From left: Olivia Wilde, Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton in 'The Invite.' The Invite/Courtesy of Sundance Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment In her delightful 2017 directing debut, Booksmart, Olivia Wilde brought insouciant freshness and a sensibility both sweet and dirty to the well-worn coming-of-age comedy. That kind of originality was precisely what her slick but hollow second feature Don't Worry Darling lacked, though the 1950s-set feminist freakout was at least admirably ambitious. In Wilde's more assured third outing as director, The Invite, the elements are closer to alignment even if you can hear the gears cranking as it shifts from comedy of bad manners into scalding pathos. When it's cooking, which is most of the run time, this is a smart, sophisticated and incisively acted adult entertainment that savages the crumbling institution of marriage, dangles the promise of sexual rescue and then brings the walls crashing down in a bitter reckoning that seems irreversible - until a window of hope and healing gets cracked open. That closing note is so lovely, and its visual handling so graceful, that it retroactively smooths the bumps. Related Stories Movies Meghan Markle Explains Why She and Prince Harry Backed Sundance Documentary 'Cookie Queens' Movies 'The Gallerist' Review: Natalie Portman and Jenna Ortega Flail Their Way Through a Clunky Art-World Satire The Invite The Bottom Line Well worth RSVPing. Venue: Sundance Film Festival (Premieres)Cast: Seth Rogen, Olivia Wilde, Penélope Cruz, Edward NortonDirector: Olivia WildeScreenwriters: Will McCormack, Rashida Jones, based on the film Sentimental, by Cesc Gay 1 hour 48 minutes The quick-witted script by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones was adapted from Spanish writer-director Cesc Gay's 2020 comedy Sentimental, based on his own play and shown in English-speaking territories as The People Upstairs. That property has become a virtual cottage industry, already spawning French, Italian, Swiss, Russian, Czech and South Korean remakes. Wilde had very clear ideas about how she intended to make her version, beginning with a generous rehearsal period during which the writers and the four impeccably matched principals workshopped the material, adjusting the fit of their characters and relationships. It was then shot sequentially on a single studio set - much like a theater company staging a play. There are weak patches in which a stiff theatricality creeps in, along with a trace of glibness, recalling Roman Polanski's starry but leaden stage-to-screen vehicle, Carnage. But more often, Wilde and her actors keep it buoyant, with a crackling energy that makes the endless streams of overlapping talk play like jazz. The director's playfulness is in evidence from the start, with Seth Rogen's goofy Beavis and Butt-Head laugh heard over shaky cellphone video of his character Joe and wife Angela (Wilde) doodling at a piano in younger years. French pop singer Fabienne Delsol's jaunty '60s-style "I'm Confessin' (That I Love You)" plays over a gorgeous multi-panel montage of happy moments from their lives together before a smash cut to Joe sitting alone in an auditorium, his dead-eyed face a mask of misery. Rogen has never been better. Joe is an associate professor at a respectable enough Bay Area music school, though it's not top-tier, one of many personal shortcomings that eat away at him like cancer. The awkward physical comedy as he attempts to get his collapsible bike out of the hall and home up the hilly streets of San Francisco is the sole scene that takes place outside the roomy apartment Joe inherited from his parents - another thing that tags him as a failure, in his eyes. Then there's the demise decades ago of his band, once the promise of a minor hit had evaporated. From the moment Joe gets in the door and collapses on the floor with chronic back pain, it's clear that Angela is too busy preparing for the evening to pay much attention to her husband's numbingly familiar complaints. The barely contained hostility between them simmers and frequently boils over as she bustles about readying for a dinner party with the neighbors, an occasion Joe indignantly claims she planned without his knowledge. Hence his arrival home without the wine he was supposed to pick up. Wilde is a keen observer of her eager-to-please character's manic sense of purpose and her mortifying fear of seeming uncool to the attractive couple upstairs, Hawk (Edward Norton) and Piña (Penélope Cruz). She seems especially in awe of the Spanish Piña: "She has presence." Angela gushes over how sweet and patient they have been about the noise from their apartment renovation. But Joe scoffs, instead fuming about the neighbors owing them an apology for the nightly aural assault of their raucous sexu