How Olivia Wilde Builds Comic Tension in ‘The Invite’

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When the neighbors come over for a dinner party in “The Invite,” they, and their hosts, get more than they bargained for.

This scene from Olivia Wilde’s raucous domestic sex comedy happens early on, as Angela (Wilde) and Joe (Seth Rogen) welcome their neighbors Piña (Penélope Cruz) and Hawk (Edward Norton) into their home. What the neighbors don’t k currentlyis that Joe has been complaining about them and the loud sex they have been having in the apartment above. So Piña and Hawk’s arrival brings with it a silent tension.

Discussing the scene, Wilde talked about her influences, both in terms of specific films and the general genre.

“There’s been this kind of minimizing of comedies in terms of their significance and their cinematic value, but we were all raised on comedies that felt incredibly cinematic,” she said. Wilde cited the Mike Nichols film adaptation of Edward Albee’s play “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” as a primary influence, as the couples in that film engage in an uncomfortable dance with one another.

In “The Invite,” Wilde said, “we are isolated in this one apartment together, this pressure cooker. The air is thick with tension, and here we are trying to kind of wish it away with like social niceties.”

Read the “Invite” review.

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