Four years on, Olivia Wilde is finally back in the directing chair. After a brilliant, barnstorming debut with 2019 graduation comedy Booksmart, Wilde had perhaps the worst sophomore experience of anyone’s life with Don’t Worry Darling. I won’t drag you through it again, but it goes something like: Harry Styles, angry fans, beef with Shia LaBeouf, divorce from Jason Sudeikis, Spitgate. What’s more, the film was widely panned and will chiefly be remembered for the drama surrounding it.
But Wilde is a skilled director, and she reminds audiences of that with The Invite, a four-hander set across one evening in which two neighbouring couples (the erotically charged Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton, versus the neurotically charged Wilde and Seth Rogen) have dinner together.
