The Invite is the best foursome you may ever have

Be careful who you select as your company to watch The Invite, a sparkling comedy-drama with very adult themes that could leave you squirming.

The strongest of the film’s powers though, is how relatable it is – even if we’re not all hopping into bed with our neighbours or discussing the merits of double penetration with near-strangers.

Olivia Wilde (also directing) and Seth Rogen are the frazzled, nit-picking couple who have settled into a disgruntled dynamic over the years without really noticing. It’s painfully believable.

When Joe (Rogen) returns home from an unfulfilling day at work, the last thing he wants to hear is that his wife Angela (Wilde) has invited the cosmopolitan couple from upstairs over for drinks.

Angela is determined that the evening will dazzle them, with a souffle in the oven and jamon and cheese purchased – but Joe hasn’t bought the wine.

‘Can we do a reset?’ she asks after tempers fray, with Joe correctly deducing that his wife asking him to walk through the front door again and act out his return is something she learned from a podcast.

But he’s still not in the mood for forced socialising, threatening to mortify Angela by bringing up the fact that their neighbours’ loud sex frequently disturbs them.

And into this contentious atmosphere arrive Pína (Penélope Cruz) and Hawk (Edward Norton), a glamorous sex therapist and firefighter who often revert to Spanish in that annoying but undeniably cool way that bilingual couples can, sharing in-jokes.

While Angela flits around in a panic, pretending nothing is wrong (casually sliding that now ruined souffle into the bin), Joe digs his heels in – only for the neighbours to enjoy his brutal honesty.

It also transpires that Pína and Hawk were planning on apologising for the upstairs ruckus… by inviting them to participate in their enthusiastic group sex sessions. For it turns out the loud orgasms Angela has been jealous of actually belong to Vanessa… or is it Kai?

Unsurprisingly, the atmosphere quickly heats up as Joe and Angela are titillated and then tempted by the offer.

What follows is a rather chaotic concoction of swinging, Sade and discussions of pegging, as Hawk offers ‘to do the thing that makes Pína scream’ to Angela.

We also get some brilliant quips from Will McCormack and Rashida Jones’ script where, when Hawk reveals that it was Pína who ‘pushed us into anal sex’, Joe responds: ‘I hope she pushed you gently.’

There’s also Hawk’s comment later, when things threaten to go off the rails (delivered with expert casualness by Norton): ‘Gosh guys, we really just wanted to see the apartment – and maybe f**k a little.’

The territory that The Invite explores is extremely ripe for both humour and heartfelt moments, showcasing a completely international appeal when it comes to the ins and outs of couples’ sex lives.

It’s based on the 2020 Spanish comedy The People Upstairs, itself based on Cesc Gay’s stage play, with a whole batch of international remakes (Italian, Swiss and South Korean) already released.

Those stage roots are pleasantly evident, with the setting of the entire film only in Joe and Angela’s flat, but never feeling confined by it. It sometimes reads like a looser, sexed-up version of Edward Albee’s famous two couple-hander Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, mixed together with a dash of Noël Coward’s witty battling humour.

It’s a top-tier cast on top form too, with fully fleshed-out characters – especially Rogen, who brings a career-best performance. This is just the type of film that I wouldn’t be surprised to see quietly slip into awards season to do battle with the anticipated big dogs like Christoper Nolan’s The Odyssey and Denis Villenueve’s Dune: Part Three, as well as other festival circuit favourites.

The Invite is in UK cinemas from today.