The Invite review – Seth Rogen adds zest and bite to fruity dinner party comedy

Olivia Wilde directs and stars alongside Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton in bizarrely moving tale, with Rogen’s levity keeping the outrageous plot points in check

Here is a four-way sex comedy of embarrassment, as if JB Priestley had written a play about swinging. But as well as embarrassing, it is intriguing, amusing and, finally, somehow bizarrely moving.

Middle class married life is satirised in the personae of two couples having an excruciating dinner party. A failed musician and his wife, played by Seth Rogen and Olivia Wilde (who also directs), extend the invitation of the title to their stylish neighbours, a therapist and ex-firefighter played by Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton. Rogen is first among equals in this cast, the ironic insider-outsider perpetually undercutting the situation’s proliferating absurdities with knowing gags or yelps of incredulous outrage, and deploying that unmistakable yuk-yuk-yuk laugh.