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Hello Crush,
If your summer has been as hectic as my summer (some serious health issues for my mother and other family needs, trying to sell my house remotely and all while keeping my tennis game together, etc., etc.) you might have missed yesterday’s CRUSH Letter. But I did see The Invite — Olivia Wilde’s new film — and I wanted to make sure my brief review of it was on your radar (because I think you might want to see it, too, CRUSHes) — no spoilers!
dishing.
things that are getting me off these days.
A Smart, Sexy Romp for “Us“: The Invite. By Dish Stanley
I love a RomCom for grown ups, particularly if it involves a dinner party that takes place in a stylishly inviting urban apartment and Penelope Cruz is a guest.
NO SPOILERS HERE.
I saw the new RomCom(ish) film from Olivia Wilde The Invite in New York last week end. That I jumped on it opening week end won’t surprise you, CRUSHes, because the trailer promised that it would touch on so many of the subjects I delight in dissecting with and for you: the dynamics in long-term marriages; the different dynamics that play out in romantic partnerships that develop later in life; sex (God yes, please); making new friends at this stage; the components of a truly good dinner party right now; witty conversation that swings from light to deep reflection (and back) on a dime; the inescapable, existential midlife+ questions of “what’s next?” and “how’d I get here, exactly?” and “is this really all there fucking is?;” as well as, I’ll admit, the shallower but nonetheless endlessly fascinating-to-me topics of home decor porn and 60+ year old men dressing well (which is not dressing “cool” and definitely not dressing in flashy logos, but rather, dressing in a way that perfectly suits who you are — because, at this stage, you know who that is — whether that’s more Robert Redford in The Old Man & The Gun or more Stanley Tucci in an impeccably tailored jacket and statement glasses).
The only thing the film was missing in my list of enduring obsessions, frankly, was a dog.
If you haven’t heard, in addition to Wilde (who directs this adaptation from a play by Cesc Gay), it stars Seth Rogen, Penelope Cruz and Ed Norton. Wilde and Rogan play a quarrelsome married couple living in an apartment in San Francisco that is directly beneath the apartment occupied by the couple played by Cruz and Norton. Wilde’s character invites the Cruz/Norton couple for dinner, to the surprise and annoyance of her husband, Rogen, who has just cycled up the equivalent of Mount Rushmore to get home. Over the course of the evening we learn that Norton’s character was a client of Cruz’s, who is a psychotherapist and sexologist, before they evolved into a romantic partnership.
I won’t reveal more because the many small and big revelations that build up about each character, and the various unexpected ways in which they are intertwined, provide so many of the delights of the film. But that set-up alone: the married couple’s “miscommunication” and the dating couple’s rule-breaking evolution from therapy/client relationship to romantic partnership, provides the footprint for you to imagine all the various directions this dinner party quartet could go.
In fact, the ensemble of Wilde, Rogen, Cruz and Norton works together like a masterful jazz quartet. Each player weaves in and out of what feels like a rambunctious improvisational set piece with a solo turn that perfectly captures the essence of their character: Rogen’s career has disappointed; Wilde is an anxious, under-occupied housewife; Norton a smug retired fireman-turned-neo-sensitive-man; and Cruz is, well, Cruz, which is to say a sensuous, smoldering shaman whose every move hints at her wilder side. (Her performance in The Invite was so much fun that it prompted me to rewatch her enjoyably unhinged portrayal of every woman’s nightmare, the vixen ex to her current love interest, in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. That saved my Saturday night.)
I saw The Invite at a 3:30 matinee at the AMC Lincoln Square — they were running the film almost on the hour all weekend — and the theater was packed. The audience erupted with spontaneous laughter throughout the film, almost as if we were the background riff to the exciting improvisation on stage. Even though I walked in solo, I left the way you leave a fabulous concert, feeling like we were all walking out of a satiating, cathartic experience together, loose and free and still moving in sync with the music.
I can’t remember the last time going to the movies was such a kick.
I’ll be publishing only periodically over the rest of the summer, CRUSHes. Because, well, summer, and all that. But carry on, and enjoy! Kiss kiss.
XO,
Dish
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The Crush Letter is a weekly newsletter from Dish Stanley curating articles & intelligence on everything love & connection - friendship, romance, self-love, sex. If you’d like to take a look at some of our best stories go to Read Us. Want the Dish?
