Olivia Wilde’s La invitación brings two troubled couples together for dinner in a San Francisco apartment. The adaptation of Cesc Gay’s Sentimental finds its sharpest stretch in the final half-hour.
The apartment’s immaculate decor gives little away about the marriage fraying inside it. Angela invites the couple upstairs to dinner, turning neighbourly politeness into a confrontation she and her husband Joe never expected.
Years of routine have buried frustrations in their relationship. Joe inherited the spacious San Francisco home from his parents. He was once a promising musician; now he teaches. Angela feels suffocated by domestic life, and their daughter is twelve. Upstairs live Pina, a Spanish psychotherapist and sexologist, and Hawk, a retired firefighter. For months, the neighbours’ uninhibited sex life has disturbed the home below. The film builds its central tension around the contrast between Joe and Angela’s troubled marriage and their neighbours’ more open approach to intimacy.
Almost everything unfolds over one night, inside the apartment. The tight setting could have made the film feel like filmed theatre, but Wilde uses the rooms to keep the pressure on. A vase shifts the mood of a scene. So can a lamp’s light or a partly open door.
The Spanish newspaper El Confidencial also points to Wilde’s use of the confined space, the actors’ interactions and close-ups to frame the characters’ physical and emotional distance.
La invitación adapts Sentimental, Cesc Gay’s 2020 film based on his play Los vecinos de arriba. The English-language version is titled The Invite, and its screenplay is by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack. ElDiario.es has called it the ninth adaptation of the story. Wilde took on the long-delayed project in 2025 and kept the existing screenplay.
The shoot lasted 21 days. Filming took place primarily on a single set, and the film runs approximately 106–108 minutes. FilmNation Entertainment is one of its production companies. Annapurna Pictures is another, alongside Permut Productions. The film premiered at Sundance without a distributor and drew strong buyer interest, according to elDiario.es. Diamond Films España releases it in Spanish cinemas on 16 October 2026. Its Spanish classification is +16. RUSSPAIN has also covered events in Spain, including the royal visit to Ceuta.
The cast shifts between comedy and drama without settling into a single register. Seth Rogen gives Joe a restrained, melancholy quality. Wilde plays Angela close to collapse. Edward Norton makes Hawk composed yet eccentric, while Penélope Cruz brings sensuality and emotional intelligence to Pina.
The opening can feel overly styled. The final half-hour is the film’s strongest stretch and, in the source review’s assessment, Wilde’s best work as a director so far. After No te preocupes querida, the film also recovers the comic energy of Súper empollonas.
