I love getting a great laugh out of an even greater comedy. There's no preference on my end, whether it's straight-forward wit from a Ginger Rogers film or a farcical satire like Airplane! (1980). The Invite, however, swings to and fro between legitimate hilarity and some of the most heartfelt emotional beats of the year.

Joe (Seth Rogen), a musician stuck in a creative rut, and Angela (Olivia Wilde), a stay-at-home wife, are in a decaying marriage where Joe's laxed attitude erodes against Angela's focused, almost neurotic lifestyle. Passive aggressive sighs are constant from both parties, and arguments are so prone to escalating that it's difficult to establish a time when they didn’t hate each other. To bring some excitement back into a marriage void of any real friendships or connections, Angela decides to invite their upstairs neighbours over for dinner one night—without Joe's knowledge or approval. 

Joe isn’t interested in meeting the very same neighbours who interrupt his sleep with their obnoxiously thunderous sex. In fact, he wants nothing to do with them at all. The pair arrive and we are introduced to Hawk (Edward Norton) and Pína (Penélope Cruz). Confidently seductive and incredibly hard to read, we're not quite sure if the couple like Joe or Angela. Hell, neither Joe nor Angela know for themselves. 

Hawk, a proud firefighter (don't use the term "fireman", he hates it!), ruffles Joe's feathers. It’s not premeditated, but Hawk’s carelessness gets his host visibly frustrated, especially when he tries to pry into the history of Joe’s failed band that never reached major success. Pína, on the other hand, mirrors all of Angela’s desires. She's sure of herself, she's goddamn beautiful and she's incredibly intelligent. Angela's insecurity in her marriage and her identity as a loveless wife becomes apparent when her people-pleasing tendencies start to humiliate Joe (we the audience suffering from second-hand embarrassment by proxy). She burns a soufflé, forces a stubborn Joe to bring out a wine they were saving for a special occasion and serves her guests 'jamon' before discovering that Pína is a vegan. 

The Invite surpassed my expectations. Wilde's stylistic approach results in a four-way riff between its actors, whose comedic instincts bounce off each other like a perfect improv theatre group. Penélope Cruz is a master at playing the holistic Eurotrash girlfriend, as is Seth Rogen as the bumbling clown. The nonstop flow of dialogue and awkward conversations gives the film a real theatrical feel, honouring its origins as a Spanish play: Cesc Gay's Els veïns de dalt / Los vecinos de arriba (2015). I found that at times, the characters feel a bit too archetypal, but because of the film's tone these gripes feel trivial when the payoff is worth it. 

While the comedy is executed brilliantly, the emotional peaks of the story are given the same treatment. Hawk's monologue in the latter half of the film marks an atmospheric change. He tells of a traumatic tragedy that completely reconfigures how Joe and Angela, and by extension the audience too, perceive Hawk and Pína as we realise they harbour their own deep secrets. The two couples collectively become more vulnerable before confessing their true desires to each other, but before they can explore their newfound dynamic any further, Joe injures his back and kills the tension. Angela is annoyed at the interruption and begins to take her frustrations out on her husband. The pair argue, because of course they do, and Pína tells them to get themselves together and accept the hard truth: their marriage is dead. It has been dead for a very, very long time. As Joe begins to reminisce his past when he goes through his long-neglected music room, Angela joins him soon after in one of the few moments of pure peace in the entire film.

There's a beautiful serenity to The Invite that I feel gets overlooked by how just how funny the film is. The overt absurdity of the sexual situations its characters find themselves in is equally brilliant to the genuine chemistry all four actors share on-screen. The Invite is classed as a comedy film when you examine its narrative structure and home in on the wonderful line deliveries, but it's the earnest conversations about failed relationships and acknowledging personal change that kept me utterly captivated. It's an ingenious directorial feat for Wilde, a cluster of outstanding performances from the whole cast and most importantly, a must-watch.