Olivia Wilde on why shame, not sex, is the real villain in The Invite
At first glance, The Invite might look like a dark comedy about, well, group sex.
There's plenty of awkward dinner party conversation, frank discussions about everything from pegging to the orgasm gap, and a couple whose open relationship completely throws their unsuspecting guests off balance.
But according to Olivia Wilde, that's never really been the point.
Speaking to Tyla ahead of The Invite's cinema release today (3 July), Wilde, who stars in and directed the film, explained that the film isn't trying to convince audiences to rethink monogamy at all.
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Instead, it's asking a much simpler question: Have couples actually spoken honestly about what they want in a relationship?
The comedy follows married couple Joe (Seth Rogen) and Angela (Olivia Wilde), whose stagnant relationship is disrupted after they meet Hawk (Edward Norton) and renowned sexologist Pína (Penélope Cruz).
What begins as an uncomfortable evening quickly becomes something much deeper, forcing Joe and Angela to confront the conversations they've spent years avoiding.
Rather than presenting ethical non-monogamy as the film's central message, Wilde sees it as a mirror held up to more conventional relationships.
"It's so great that now the concept of non-monogamy has been unearthed and the shame has been taken out of it," she said.
"The movie is saying, don't hold yourself back by these assumptions you've made about yourself and your partner and what they think and what they want," Wilde explained to Tyla.
"What happens when you actually open up the conversation? It's not advocating for one way over the other. It's just saying, have you even had the conversation?"
That idea became even clearer when Wilde referenced relationship therapist Esther Perel, who consulted on the film.
"People talk about sex with everyone except their partner," Wilde said. "This movie is saying, have the conversation. Talk about it. You might be holding yourself back in a way you don't even realise."
For Norton, who plays the effortlessly calm Hawk, the film's emotional core has very little to do with sex at all.
"I don't think the point was to advocate for anything really other than how healthy it is to be available to life," he told Tyla.
He believes Olivia's character Angela's conundrum is something many people will identify with.
"I think a lot of people are going to relate to Angela's basic complaint at the beginning of the film, which is, 'I want more life.'
"I want interactions with people. I want more life. That's really all she's saying."
Norton suggested many people eventually lose the feeling that 'anything could happen', and that emotional openness, rather than sexual openness, is what the story is ultimately exploring.
Despite some of its headline-grabbing subject matter, The Invite deliberately avoids treating conversations surrounding sex as shocking or provocative.
The film casually references topics including pegging, polyamory, perimenopause and the orgasm gap without ever making them feel taboo.
When asked why that mattered, Wilde said removing shame from those conversations was one of the film's guiding principles.
"The non-judgmental attitude towards sex that Pína and Hawk bring into Joe and Angela's life is everything," she explained.
"The idea of removing the taboo and just having conversations."
Wilde even laughed at suggestions that Hawk and Pína are the film's 'raunchy couple'.
"It's certainly not what the film is saying," she said.
"It's the opposite. It's the idea of what happens if you remove shame from the conversation. What would you talk about if you didn't bring shame into it?"
Ironically, Norton believes that's exactly what makes the film so funny.
Rather than relying on shock value, he says the humour comes from watching different attitudes collide.
"If one person is talking about sexual taboos in a very even way, but someone else's eyes are doubling, that's what makes you laugh," he explained.
"It's the dichotomy between the two of them that makes it funny."
It's a refreshing approach in a film that could easily have leaned into cheap gags or outrage. Instead, The Invite uses sex as a starting point for a much bigger conversation about loneliness, honesty and the ways in which relationships can drift apart over time.
Check out the official trailer here:
While Joe spends much of the evening convinced the noisy couple upstairs are the source of his discomfort, it's his own marriage that's making the loudest noise.
By the time the credits roll, the film has become less about unconventional relationships and more about whether any relationship can survive without genuine communication.
For Wilde, that's the conversation she hopes audiences leave the cinema having.
Whether viewers ultimately identify with Joe and Angela or Hawk and Pína isn't especially important - what matters is that they stop making assumptions and start talking.
After all, as The Invite so excellently argues, honesty might be the most radical thing a couple can bring into a relationship.
The Invite is available to watch in selected cinemas from today (3 July)
Topics: Celebrity, TV And Film, Cinema, Tyla Exclusive, Sex and Relationships
Rhiannon Ingle