Olivia Wilde speaks onstage during “The Invite” Premiere during the 2026 Sundance Film Festival at Eccles Center Theater on January 24, 2026 in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images)
By Adam Silverstein
“I’ll keep it short, because I’m way too nervous and excited,” Olivia Wilde says, standing on the Eccles Theatre stage. “This was the dream — to premiere right here. Thank you. And thank you, Mr. Redford.” A ripple of applause rolls through the audience, part gratitude, part reverence.
Wilde’s third feature as a director, The Invite debuts in the 2026 Sundance Film Festival’s Premieres category and it plays like a comedy wired directly into the audience’s nervous system. The script — by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones — is sharp, cruel in the best way, and relentlessly funny, built around a situation so simple it’s practically a dare: one dinner, two couples, and a marriage quietly cracking under the weight of everything left unsaid.
Wilde stars as Angela, opposite Seth Rogen’s Joe, a married couple who feel stalled, irritated, and deeply out of sync. Their evening is already on edge when their upstairs neighbors arrive: Hawk (Ed Norton, oily and magnificent) and Piña (Penélope Cruz), a glamorous, unnervingly open couple whose relationship runs on radical honesty, sex, and an accent that somehow makes every line land harder. Piña is a psychotherapist and sexologist, which feels less like a profession than a warning.
The setup sounds like farce, and at times it absolutely is. The audience howls as Angela burns a soufflé in a panic spiral, as Joe fumes about the neighbors’ constant ocean sound effects upstairs. Devonté Hynes’ string-heavy score adds a twitchy, almost romantic tension beneath it all, as if the movie itself is holding its breath.
But The Invite isn’t just a sex comedy or a marital satire. Underneath the jokes is something sadder and more familiar: what happens when two people know, on some level, that it’s over, but can’t bring themselves to say it out loud. Wilde and Rogen are terrific together in that space. Angela and Joe still love each other, but every exchange feels like a negotiation they’re both losing.
Across the table, Norton and Cruz are having an entirely different kind of fun. Norton’s Hawk is a pervy delight, suave and slightly reptilian, the kind of guy who bonds with Angela over rugs while quietly detonating her sense of self. Cruz’s Piña is curious and disarmingly sincere, bonding with Joe over weed and vulnerability in ways that feel both generous and destabilizing.
The Eccles crowd is fully locked in, laughter erupting at nearly every line. It’s the kind of screening where jokes start landing before the punchlines are finished, where you can feel people leaning forward in their seats, delighted and slightly horrified by recognition. There’s a giddy pleasure in watching a movie this watchable — one that knows exactly how uncomfortable it wants you to be and commits to it.
After the film, the reaction crescendos into a standing ovation for Wilde, who looks genuinely overwhelmed as she returns to the stage. During the Q&A, Rogen reveals Wilde originally didn’t plan to star in the film. “She kept sending us names of other people. Ed and I were like, why are you doing this?” he says. “I loved every day on set. It felt like making a movie with friends. If I was friends with Penélope Cruz. Which I’m not.”
Norton calls the experience “a magic carpet ride,” marveling at Wilde’s ability to direct and act simultaneously. “I kept thinking, where is her stress?” he says. “She skated so lightly between all of it.”
Wilde clarifies it wasn’t easy. “Editing this movie was so difficult,” she laughs. “It was an embarrassment of riches. There’s a seven-hour version you guys would have liked.” She explains that they shot the film in order, letting ideas and improvisations build naturally. “We kept generating as we went to make sure it felt authentic.”
By the time the Q&A wraps, it’s clear The Invite has done exactly what it set out to do: make the audience laugh, squirm, and maybe recognize a piece of themselves they weren’t expecting to see reflected back. It’s a sharp mockery of marriage, yes — but also a strangely tender one, aware that no one in the room, on screen or off, really has it all together.
