Olivia Wilde’s The Invite Ending Explained: Do Joe and Angela Break Up?
The A24 comedy with Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton is now on HBO Max. What happens in the last scene, what the writers said about it, the Spanish film it remakes and where to watch.
- The ending of The Invite is open on purpose: the night’s verdict is that Joe and Angela’s marriage, “as it is now,” is over, and the film closes on the two of them playing an old piano duet.
- It is a remake of Cesc Gay’s 2020 Spanish film Sentimental, released in English as The People Upstairs.
- The Invite has streamed on HBO Max since Oct. 23 and airs on HBO tonight, Oct. 24, at 8 p.m. ET.
Olivia Wilde‘s The Invite, the A24 comedy about a dinner party that blows up a marriage, landed on HBO Max this week after a summer run that took in more than $55 million worldwide.
Its last scene is the reason people are searching for it: the movie never says whether the couple stays together.
Spoilers follow.
What happens at the end of The Invite?
Joe (Seth Rogen), a former musician who teaches band and hates his life, comes home to find that his wife, Angela (Wilde), has invited the upstairs neighbors to dinner. Those are the neighbors whose loud sex keeps them up at night.
Pina (Penélope Cruz), a sex therapist, and Hawk (Edward Norton) have come with an invitation of their own, to one of their sex parties. The couples split up for the night, and nothing happens: Joe throws out his back, and the evening collapses into a fight.
Pina, finding out that Joe and Angela have not had sex in a year, sits them down like patients. Angela says Joe “decided to be miserable.” Joe says she controls everything. Asked why they are still together, both give the same answer: their daughter, Maggie.
Pina tells them that the relationship, as it is, is over, and that they can start a new one with each other if they want. They agree.
After the neighbors leave, Joe goes to his office to sleep and, for the first time in years, sits at the piano. Angela joins him for the duet heard in the opening scene, and rests her head on his shoulder.
Do Joe and Angela break up?
The film does not say, and that was the plan. Co-writers Rashida Jones and Will McCormack said on the Scriptnotes podcast that the ending is ambiguous by design, and that audiences polled at screenings split on what happens next.
When you’re in a marriage for a long time, it is hard, and you don’t have to be perfect. You don’t even have to be good, but you do have to try.
Will McCormack, co-writer, on Scriptnotes
McCormack said the piano scene was meant as “a tender mercy.” What the ending does settle is the old arrangement: the marriage they had at the start of the night is the one Pina declares over, whether the next one is with each other, as friends raising Maggie, or apart.
The question the movie leaves on the table, whether to stay together for a child, is the one Pina answers out loud: that a daughter can tell when her parents are unhappy.
Is The Invite a remake?
Yes. It is an English-language remake of Sentimental, Cesc Gay’s 2020 Spanish film, known in English as The People Upstairs. Jones and McCormack moved the story to an American apartment, and Wilde reworked their script with the cast during weeks of rehearsal before shooting.
Wilde shot it in 23 days, in order, almost entirely in one apartment set built on a soundstage at Sunset Las Palmas Studios in Hollywood, where the pilot of I Love Lucy was filmed, she told The Hollywood Reporter. The psychotherapist Esther Perel consulted on the film.
Wilde had planned only to direct. When the actress cast as the fourth lead dropped out, the rest of the cast talked her into playing Angela. “I was a big advocate for her being in it,” Rogen said. Before that, Amy Adams, Paul Rudd and Tessa Thompson had been attached, during six years of delays.
Who’s in The Invite cast?
| Actor | Character | Who they are |
|---|---|---|
| Seth Rogen | Joe | A band teacher and former musician with a bad back |
| Olivia Wilde | Angela | His wife, an artist who gave up her career to raise their daughter |
| Penélope Cruz | Pina | The upstairs neighbor, a recently divorced sex therapist |
| Edward Norton | Hawk | Pina’s partner, a widower who renamed himself after his wife died |
Where can you watch The Invite?
The Invite streams on HBO Max, included with a subscription, since Oct. 23. It airs on HBO’s cable channel at 8 p.m. ET on Saturday, Oct. 24. It is also for rent or purchase on the A24 app and digital stores, and A24 sells Blu-ray and 4K editions.
The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, where A24 bought it for more than $12 million after a bidding war with Focus Features. It opened in seven theaters in New York and Los Angeles on June 26 and went nationwide on July 10. It runs 107 minutes.
Another A24 release this fall: Nathan Fielder’s Elizabeth Holmes documentary, explained. On TV, a newer marriage played for laughs: “Newlyweds,” with real-life spouses Téa Leoni and Tim Daly, and the Netflix rom-com “Nobody Wants This” Season 3.
Going through a breakup of your own? Eight movies to watch, by mood, including Jones and McCormack’s “Celeste and Jesse Forever.” More couples and relationship questions in Love & Relationships, and more in Movies & TV.
— Bruno Monteiro
Sources: A24; Deadline (Matt Grobar; Jill Goldsmith); Variety (Rebecca Rubin and Matt Donnelly); The Hollywood Reporter (Mia Galuppo); Decider (Anna Menta), on the Scriptnotes interview with Rashida Jones and Will McCormack. Photos: A24.
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