Review: For a dinner party gone entertainingly wrong or is it right? accept 'The Invite'

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Set us as preferred For a long time, the lifestyles and foibles of the modest bourgeoisie were a mainstay of art-house cinema, with urbane, upscale audiences happy to turn out to see versions of their own lives depicted on the screen.But more recently, as ideas about what middle age looks like have shifted, along with the changing demographics of viewers, these films have largely disappeared.

Which is what makes the seriocomic “The Invite” feel both fresh and something of a throwback — a movie for those who worry about losing their edge.Directed by Olivia Wilde, “The Invite” was a clear standout when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January and now arrives in theaters as one of the best dramas of the year so far.It feels daring for how it wants to actually examine the emotional costs of contemporary grown-up life, bringing wincing laughs of recognition.The film begins with married couple Angela and Joe, played by Wilde and Seth Rogen, checking back in at their home in San Francisco at the end of the day.

He has been at the teaching job he resents and she has been frantically preparing for the dinner party she may not have told him about.Their daughter is away at a sleepover for the evening and it seems they no longer fully know how to relate to each other.

As they bicker and jab, their quiet dissatisfaction with their lives stops being so quiet.Entertainment & Arts Angela has invited over their neighbors from the apartment upstairs, who they do not know well and who often have loud sex.

That couple, Piña and Hawk, played by Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton, seems more assured, self-possessed and adventurous, the kind of people you can absent-mindedly invent stories about, assuming their lives are much cooler than your own.Things go in ways both expected and unexpected, the two couples warily fee...