Brianland

Lobby display at Lincoln Square Theater in NYC
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For the last little while, there’s been one or two movies each year that really resonated as masterpieces — and this year The Invite kept that streak going. 

Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood — 2019
Knives Out — 2019
Hamilton — 2020
Babylon — 2022
Barbie — 2023
A Complete Unknown — 2024
Saturday Night — 2024
One Battle After Another — 2025
The Invite — 2026
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I’ve watched it 14 times as of this pub date . . . and still laugh out loud every freakin time!  

Adapted from a 2020 Spanish film called Sentimental aka The People Upstairs — this is the fifth country to make their own interpretation of it (!)  It’s basically a two-couple play entirely set in one apartment.  And yes, in many ways it’s a contemporary update on Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?  It’s basically written and staged like a play — but was created specifically for the screen.
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Like Virginia Woolf, it’s about relationships and the truth.  In both films, the men in the main couples are associate professors at a college, and both wear almost identical glasses.  The woman of the host couple in both movies invites another couple over and the man doesn’t know about it and doesn’t want them coming over, and in both films they’re arguing when the doorbell rings.  Both cinematographers make use of mirrors, use handhelds to put the viewer right in the middle of the action, and effectively have lamps lighting rooms.  Both make frequent use of low-angle shots of the main characters to give them prominence in their moment and make them look majestic.  Both had an entire house or apartment built as a stand-alone complete set.  Both have the characters drinking a fair bit which happily frees up the dialog — which is masterful in each.  Both have a voyeuristic feel of us peering into private lives we’re not really supposed to.  Both use humor while exploring difficult subjects.  Both deal with a fighting couple who ultimately love each other.  It’s so sad Albee & Nichols didn’t live to see this.

Here’s Olivia talking about how Virginia Woolf was the North Star for her making this movie . . .

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When it premiered at Sundance in January 2026, it immediately ignited a bidding war from virtually every studio & streaming service, and director & star Olivia Wilde held out for the longest theatrical run, which A24 won.  She’s referred to the streaming services’ offers as a “bribe.”

Following her see-it-in-a-theater advice, I first went to experience it in a nearly full house at Lincoln Square in Manhattan, and the whole theater was laughing from start to finish.  When I got home to Toronto I looked for a screening with the most seats sold, and the same thing happened, except I laughed (along with the audience) even more the second time.

I went in simply thinking I’d have a fun movie experience . . . but repeat viewings reveal this to be an absolute masterpiece.

Directors set the tone of a picture both on set and on screen.  Olivia pulls off this magic trick of dealing with heavy subjects and an unhappily married couple but has you buoyant and laughing all the way through.

Two of the most important elements to me to making a great film is — it’s gotta have humor and it’s gotta have love — and this has both in spades.

Then, of course, it has to have a great script.  My very first takeaway in Manhattan was — This has GOT to be nominated for Best Screenplay!  It’s SO smart, SO fast-paced, SO sophisticated, SO funny — and so the opposite of so much that’s being made these years.  The director, actors & screenwriting duo of Rashida Jones (Quincy’s daughter) & Will McCormack workshopped the play (which is really what this is) together for two full weeks — then continued evolving it all through the 23-day shoot. 

Them describing their approach of surprising each other live during takes reminds me of the Merry Pranksters’ approach to art & theater.  This overall masterpiece of creation also make me think of  Alejandro Iñárritu’s quote — “To make a great film is a miracle.” 

How it’s all handled — from the macro tone to the micro glances — by director/star Wilde & her cast & cinematographer & editor should sure also make this Best Picture & Best Director nominated.

So, I was so happy when Variety just did an Oscar frontrunners piece and has this listed as being up for Best Picture, Director & Adapted Screenplay — plus Olivia for Best Lead Actress and Penelope Cruz for Best Supporting.  It also deserves nominations for Best Casting, Cinematography, Editing, Score and Production Design.  More on all that ahead.

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How Olivia directs the movie and delivers this performance is beyond me — although she’s said that working among the actors made her directing job clearer.  The performance sure has resonance with Diane Keaton (to whom the film is dedicated!) in Annie Hall, and Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinnie in that she’s an adorable character, mesmerizing  (you can’t take your off her) and carries the movie.  And both those other two women won Oscars for their work.  

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I think this is probably the best Lead Actress performance since Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich … 26 years ago!

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The two male leads are also masterful in different ways.  Seth Rogen as Olivia’s put-upon wise-cracking husband is as funny as he’s ever been — and Ed Norton as the calm half of the couple upstairs who accept ‘the invite’ is as tone-perfect as he is in every other role he’s taken.  After the two of them seeing it together for the first time at Sundance, Seth turned to Ed and said, “I don’t think I’m ever gonna be in a better movie than that.”

And not only is Penelope on Variety’s Best Supporting nomination list — but she was the one who suggested speaking Spanish with her husband — a resonant reality of our 21st century life — and a cool nod to the country of the film’s origin.

The score is only a cello for the first 3/4s of the film — reminding me of Birdman which is entirely scored by drums.  Written by Devonté Hynes and played by Kirin McElwain (a woman), it’s punchy, poignant, funny and romantic.  And there’s even some super dramatic plucking!  What a gutsy brilliant choice by director Olivia!  Here’s a great short video piece with both the composer and cellist. 

Oh, and the beautiful song that’s played on the piano in the opening & closing scene is called I’m Confessin’ (That I Love You).  (a cue for anyone unsure about the ending’s meaning).  It’s a jazz standard from the 1930s that was first recorded in 1930 by Louis Armstrong, then later by Thelonious Monk, Django Reinhardt & many others,

And that final scene at the piano was the final scene shot — at 2 in the morning on the last night they had in the soundstage — when they had to vacate it in just a few hours and the whole thing was broken down.

This film was really born out of Olivia Wilde’s guest appearance on Seth Rogen’s The Studio.  Not only did they discover how much they liked working together — including how well they fought on camera — but she got to see how Seth handled both directing and starring in a production, and how adept his crew was at making changes on the fly — and she brought his cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra & his team in to make The Invite.

And speaking of fighting and cinematography — watch for the circular spinning when Olivia & Seth have the confrontation about the window.  Audiences are used to a camera on a circular track circling around two actors going at it in a dramatic scene — but here the actors are actually circling each other while the camera holds steady in the tight space.

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And speaking of the tight space — Olivia & company decided against removable walls on set.  They wanted it to be a real apartment and have the D.P. work with all the available angles.  Plus they wanted to work fast, and it’s just too much of a flow-kill to remove a wall and then have to re-set it.

The film was shot in 35mm — and in chronological order to give the cast the option to evolve their roles as the story played out — and all these experienced thespians ran with it.  Both Olivia and Ed Norton have said in interviews they’ve never had the chance to shoot a film in page order and have always wanted to.

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Watch for the framing choices of frames within frames . . . and how the lamps are handled in the apartment, appearing effectively as though they’re all that’s lighting the room.

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Enjoy the heck out of all his wonderful pull-focuses of different facial reactions throughout.

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And dig the cool voyeur shots like we’re spying on them thru windows & French doors.  And how there’s no fancy oners or sweeping showoff shots.  It’s all very steady & smooth — not distracting the audience with movement but letting us learn from the characters’ faces.  Not only is it written like a play, it’s shot like a play with us focusing on the actors’ faces.  And watch for the playful & super-effective use of mirrors.  So often when you’re in an apartment with small rooms, you see what’s going on via mirrors, and he smartly makes great use of that truth.

Here’s a fantastic Sept 2026 interview with D.P. Adam explaining how he shot it.

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Olivia is a one-camera director — meaning it’s not two or more cameras capturing a scene.  Every single shot is its own setup — and all the actors buy-in and are on set delivering the lines to their castmates for them to react & respond to.

And thus, watch for the brilliant editing by Anthony Boys & Yorgos Mavropsaridis.  This is a human interaction drama, and the revealing reaction shots to the non-stop twists tells so much of the story.  And dig the pacing.  There’s intentionally long-held shots, and there’s often funny and always impactful fast-cut edits to the different characters’ contrasting reactions.  This is so skillfully edited with ‘telling the story’ in mind.

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And then there’s the incredibly detailed production design of the apartment where the entire play takes place.  Also reminiscent of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? the set becomes a rich fifth character in the drama.  Production designer Jade Healy & her team spent time exploring old San Francisco apartments to get the smallest details exactly right.

Usually when you see a ceiling in a scene you can assume it’s a location shot.  Rarely does production design eliminate the all-important overhead lighting grid.  As director Olivia told it in a great interview with IndieWire, once the four actors & spartan crew were in the fully built apartment set, they all forgot they were anywhere else.

The costumer is Arianne Phillips — Oscar nominated for and knocked it out of the park with both A Complete Unknown and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood — two of the other best movies of the last few years.  The foil characters (Ed & Penelope) are dressed in black — contrasting with Olivia & Seth’s aqua tones — but it also really allows for those movie stars’ faces to pop on camera. 

And the sound editing by Simon Campbell from Abbey Road is fantastic and absolutely pins the peaks — but just about nobody ever thinks about how important sound editing is.  There’s so many times he accentuates something funny or dramatic — from the back cracking to the floor creaking to the light switches turning off — and they’re just a one-second moments in the film.

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This is an important movie to be recognized & celebrated because there are not many films being written & created for adults that are getting into theaters these years.  And this could never have been written & directed by a man.  It’s almost an arthouse film — there’s only four characters, one set, and no guns or car chases or CGI.  And it has the poetry of dialog of our greatest dramatists — but with more laughs-per-minute than anything Shakespeare or any of the other hall-of-famers ever came up with.

To my eyes & ears this is as good as filmmaking gets.

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For another recent masterpiece — here’s a complete scene-by-scene breakdown of One Battle After Another including lotsa quotes and background . . .

One Battle After Another – Scene-by-Scene Breakdown – Time-Coded, Quotes & Deets

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Or here’s the same kind of scene-by-scene breakdown of A Complete Unknown also full of dialog transcriptions and background on all the songs and real people who make appearances . . .

“A Complete Unknown” Scene Breakdown – Time Codes, Song Titles, Quotes & Context

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Or here’s the 7½ hours of The Beatles: Get Back broken down and time-coded so you can find whatever your’re looking for . . .

The Beatles: Get Back — Time-Coded and Annotated

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Or here’s my Top 30 Greatest Movies of All-time with explanations and links . . .

Greatest Movies Ever Made — Brian’s Version

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And speaking of great dramatists — here’s the story of the day I met Arthur Miller and was able to thank him for making my and my father’s life better . . .

The Day I Thanked Arthur Miller

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Or here’s when On The Road made its North American premiere and I ended up hanging with director Walter Salles . . .

Making better time On The Road

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Here’s a riveting conversation with Edward Norton talking about Olivia & the improbable story of The Invite getting made, and him knowing Mike Nichols and how he came back to life channeling thru Olivia, and her being in “a flow state” making the movie as both the director and actress, and shooting it in page order, and giving everyone involved the freedom to create it on the fly, and his big third act improv monologue, and how it was similar to his ‘teaspoon brigade’ speech in A Complete Unknown, and how it uncorked the whole series of events that came after it, and Seth’s work ethic. An incredible conversation you will learn a lot from.

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Or here’s a joyous revealing playful conversation with all four actors after a Sept screening in L.A.

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by BrianHassett.com

karmacoupon@gmail.com — BrianHassett.com

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