From Splitsville to Lily Allen’s tell-all album, ethical non-monogamy has been having a bit of a PR crisis. Open relationships and swinging are often portrayed as messy, doomed, or a marriage on the brink of collapse. So when I sat down to watch The Invite—Olivia Wilde's new dinner-party comedy in which an ethically non-monogamous couple propositions their neighbours—I expected more of the same. I was wrong.
Without spoiling what happens, The Invite gives ENM the nuanced portrayal it rarely gets on screen. The story follows two couples whose dinner descends into arguments, flirtation and, eventually, a proposition. Yet, for once, the open couple (played by Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton) aren't the dysfunctional one. Instead, it's the supposedly "normal" monogamous pair (Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogen) whose relationship begins to unravel.
