57/100
Skipped Don't Worry Darling, so I can't definitively say that Wilde doesn't know how to begin a movie, but I very nearly bailed on Booksmart early on and had the same get-me-outta-here impulse watching Wilde and Rogen trade ostensibly comic hostile zingers at breakneck speed for what felt like half an hour but was probably less than half that. Actually, even the initial bit with Joe sullenly ignoring his class and then struggling to get a folding bike out the door seemed notably labored to me, even though Rogen's sitting there doing literally nothing for most of it. (Joe remained an obstacle to my enjoyment throughout, but it's a matter of how emphatically snarky-dickish that character's been written; I doubt another actor could have turned me around. Though I see there are opportunities to find out in Spanish, Italian, German, French and Korean!) Rhythm starts feeling more relaxed once Pina and Hawk arrive, and there's a magnificent stretch following the shoe drop, as Wilde-the-performer makes a meal of Angela's ardent curiosity about the practical details of how this lifestyle works, and "Are we in fact doing this?" gradually shifts from implicit to, uh, explicit. Don't want to weird folks out with TMI but the tenor of that extended negotiation—in particular, Angela and Joe silently feeling each other out via eye contact, both concerned that voicing their desires out loud might be disastrous—is highly accurate, down to the precise mix of nervousness and (mostly on Angela's side) boldness. (Didn't know the hook in advance but foresaw where things were headed from the casual, matter-of-fact way that Angela says "Do it" when Hawk expresses a desire to roll around naked on their new rug. Not an idle dare.) To me, this scenario would be far more compelling were the inexperienced couple on reasonably good terms, so that's there's genuine risk in impulsively opening things up. The Invite's fundamentally a therapy movie, though, and not much of its confessional Bergman-lite third act appealed to me. I did like the wordless final scene, largely thanks to my soft spot for "I'm Confessin' (That I Love You)," but that just now made me remember how much I disliked the opening credits sequence! Like Booksmart, this thing's all over the place, sometimes inspired but often too damn sweaty.