The Invite (2026)
Directed by Olivia Wilde
Joe and Angela's marriage is on thin ice. When they invite their enigmatic upstairs neighbors for a dinner party, the night spirals into unexpected places. Have they reignited the spark or lit the match that burns it all down?
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45 films that influenced The Invite
What critics say influenced The Invite
Director
Mike Nichols
Critics invoke Nichols by name, and compare The Invite to 3 of Nichols’s films.
Visuals
On Nichols, rather than any one film
With a propulsive, effervescent comedic style worthy of Mike Nichols…
…channeling Nichols and May…
…a Mike Nichols riff with a micro cast, one location, and a collaborative approach to storytelling…
They’re bickering, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?” style, as sexologist Pina (Penélope Cruz) and sensitive former fire fighter Hawk (Edward Norton) arrive.
…the result is a four-person comedy of manners, like “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” played for uncomfortable laughs…
If in something like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf the characters’ inadequacies and resentments fuel their increasingly erratic behavior, here these people feel like grab bags of punchlines…
…spiritually linked to other uncomfortable dinner party films, from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (dir. Mike Nichols, 1966)…
The Invite will be known as Olivia Wilde’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and this is not only fair, but an obvious influence.
Much in the same way that the film version of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? feels like a play, or Woody Allen’s early works (he was initially a playwright) feel like plays.
…and maybe a dash or two of Carnal Knowledge as well.
…evocative of fellow adaptations Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), Carnage (2011), or Closer (2004)…
Upon its release in 1969, Paul Mazursky’s Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice was both praised and criticised for being a social commentary and a verdict on marriage (and Americans) that was conveyable only through comedy. The film’s watershed financial success made it possible for others to follow suit and explore themes of consensual promiscuity on screen.
Joe and Angela and Hawk and Piña—like Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice before them—“have it all.”
Paul Mazursky’s BOB & CAROL & TED & ALICE in 1969 also treads similar ground but had oodles more maturity and profundity.
…merge it with a single-location stage adaptation like Carnage…
…evocative of fellow adaptations Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), Carnage (2011), or Closer (2004)…
From Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? to Carnage, cinema has no shortage of stories about dysfunctional couples going to war with each other.
Take Michael Angelo Covino’s Splitsville — a movie you probably haven’t seen but need to — and merge it with a single-location stage adaptation like Carnage.
Though he's plenty of music videos, the somewhat similarly themed Splitsville is among what seems a productive furrow of somewhat-romantic comedies.
There are also shades of Husbands and Wives, Woman Under the Influence, and more recently, Splitsville.
…putting to bed any potential comparisons to Michael Angelo Corvino’s Splitsville…
DP Adam Newport-Berra (one of the best at making an interior a character; see Splitsville and The Last Black Man in San Francisco)…
Director of Photography Adam Newport-Berra (Splitsville)…
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Stanley Kubrick (“Eyes Wide Shut”)…
Derek Cianfrance (“Blue Valentine”)…
…even more pinpoint than Judd Apatow’s (lame and overlong) This is 40…
The Invite is based on Cesc Gay‘s Spanish film The People Upstairs (also called Sentimental)…
Based on the 2020 Spanish film The People Upstairs, this adaptation bathes in the tense and uncomfortable aspects that would haunt any host.
The Invite, based on the Spanish director Cesc Gay’s 2020 movie The People Upstairs (which was itself based on an earlier play by Gay)…
In a script based on the Spanish film The People Upstairs…
The film adapts Cesc Gay’s The People Upstairs for an American audience, which was also remade in Italy, Switzerland, France, and South Korea.
Based on the Spanish film The People Upstairs, Wilde’s picture borrows the original’s real-time setting…
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Director
Woody Allen
Critics invoke Allen by name, and compare The Invite to 1 of Allen’s films.
Visuals
On Allen, rather than any one film
Rogen plays his role in a manner very similar to Woody Allen’s style, and the film itself is dedicated to Diane Keaton; the musical choices also reflect Allen’s style of film-making.
…early Woody Allen. Fuck Allen, but the visual strength of his early work is there…
There are also shades of Husbands and Wives, Woman Under the Influence, and more recently, Splitsville.
Filmmakers like Noah Baumbach (with both “The Squid and the Whale” and his far better divorce drama “Marriage Story”)…
…the cruelty of stagnating relationships can make for great cinema: Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, Before Midnight, Marriage Story…
Filmmakers like Noah Baumbach (with both “The Squid and the Whale” and his far better divorce drama “Marriage Story”)…