Jaw-dropping The Invite with Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogen is already the funniest movie of the year

Running time: 107 minutes.Not yet rated.PARK CITY, Utah — If a better comedy than “The Invite” hits theaters this year, audiences will be damn lucky to RSVP. Director Olivia Wilde’s outstanding movie, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival Saturday to a rare mountain standing ovation, should go down as one of the best of 2026.

Of any genre.You’ll howl.What a stunning return to form this is for Wilde after the letdown that was “Don’t Worry Darling.” I, for one, am no longer worrying, darlings, because now she’s firmly back in prime “Booksmart” territory with a sophisticated, snappy, seductive and stupendously funny film about a long-married couple who are in way over their heads.   They’re Joe (Seth Rogen) and Angela (Wilde doing double duty), husband-and-wife apartment dwellers for whom marriage has become a sleepy series of silent nights and petty grievances.Their passive-aggressive putdowns are flung so quickly and casually, you walk out convinced Wilde and Rogen have been secretly married for 20 years.One evening, when their 12-year-old daughter is at a friend’s house, Angela invites their bohemian upstairs neighbors Hawk (Edward Norton) and Pina (Penelope Cruz) over for a classy wine-and-charcuterie party. High-strung Angela desperately aspires to be considered cultured.

And as she strenuously tries to prove herself, Wilde gives one of her finest performances.Practically rhythmic gymnastics.She mentally grasps for the thesaurus when she attempts to describe her super basic home renovation.

And her face twists in operatic agony over snafus with her cheese souffle and empty wine cabinet.A bored stay-at-home mom, Angela is itching to host the cosmopolitan couple.But Joe, a music teacher who hates his job, loathes the free-spirited pair because they have foghorn-loud sex into the early morning, and insists the get-together be called off.

Too late.The pair knock, knock, knock mid-fight.“We love a contentious environment,�...