Responding to an Invite

I am not the first commentator to compare The Invite to Edward Albee’s classic drama, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Actually, there’s a whole theatrical genre of what I call couch plays—stories that unfold almost entirely within a living-room set, featuring two married couples who meet, mingle, clash, and maybe flirt before ultimately going their separate ways. See, for example, the play and eventually the film God of Carnage, by Yasmina Reza. But that work focuses on the two couples’ status as the indignant parents of (unseen) brawling schoolboys. The Invite,  by contrast, hews much closer to Virginia Woolf territory by dedicating itself to the sexual side of marriage.

 This was originally a Spanish play and film, but it works perfectly well in its cinematic transfer to yuppie San Francisco. The first character we meet is Joe (Seth Rogen), a forty-something failed musician who now uncomfortably leads the jazz ensemble at a mediocre local music conservatory. He is, it turns out, uncomfortable about a lot of things, including a marriage that has over time become contentious. His wife Angela, played by Olivia Wilde (who also smartly directed this piece) is a stay-at-home hausfrau who has recently poured her artistic skills into an extensive renovation. She’s neurotic and controlling; he’s neurotic and wants nothing more than to be left alone. But tonight that won’t work, because she has unexpectedly invited over the rather glamorous couple upstairs, who have made a big impression at odd hours of the night with their wild sexual antics. So Angela is first seen obsessively fussing over a charcuterie arrangement and worrying about which wine to serve, while Joe bemoans his bad back and his disinclination to hobnob with strangers.

 The guests, when they arrive, seem determined to be charming. Basically, they want to charm the pants off their hosts.  Hawk and Piña (Edward Norton and a platinum-blonde Penelope Cruz) are about a decade older than their hosts, and have clearly had a more varied life experience. They apologize profusely for the noise that has disturbed their neighbors’ sleep, but explain that they might not have been the guilty parties. You see, they like to invite friendly folks over for an evening of group sex. And, hey, would Angela and Joe care to partake?

 What follows is a series of revelations in which we come to know all four of these neighbors better. Joe and Angela’s strained marriage comes in for scrutiny, but we gradually discover that Piña and Hawk—despite their freewheeling sexuality—have their own twisty past lives and are experiencing their own tensions.  

 Far be it from me to disclose how the film resolves itself. Suffice it to say that the mood keeps shifting—from distrust to fascination to hilarity to something far different—leading to a coda that leaves us at least a bit hopeful for the future of these complicated folks.

 If you’re tired of cast-of-thousands movies, and prefer those with stories that are intimate, psychologically acute, and occasionally very funny, The Invite has much to offer. All four actors are at the top of their game, and seem to be ready for anything. Seth Rogen, in particular, is both exasperating and hilarious, and I personally loved spending a fraught evening with him and the neuroses that just won’t quit. Then there is Olivia Wilde’s jittery eagerness to please, Edward Norton’s deceptively cheery bonhomie, and Penelope Cruz’s take-charge smarts. The ending of The Invite may contain a touch of Virginia Woolf, but these four are definitely not imitations of Edward Albee’s characters. Instead, they’re fully (and fascinatingly) themselves.  

 

“A Complete Unknown”: Bob Dylan Finds (and roars away from) Fame

Watching the Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, was like returning (yikes!) to my college years. Though never a hardcore Dylan fan, I attended a Hollywood Bowl concert that took place soon after Dylan shocked his fans at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival by playing a plugged-in electric set with members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. As at Newport, there was booing at the Bowl, with audience members showing their fury that a man they regarded as an earnest young folkie (a poet and an one-man band, in Paul Simon’s terms) was turning toward rock-and-roll.

 Back then, as an atypical Sixties kid more interested in literature than protest, I didn’t quite see what the fuss was about. But in watching A Complete Unknown I was surprised how much I responded to those oh-so-familiar tunes: the wistful “Blowin’ in the Wind,” the ominous “A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall,” the jaunty "Subterranean Homesick Blues." And I realized, via the film, how much Dylan—a man who liked to be inscrutable—revealed about himself in his songs.

 It was smart of the filmmakers to focus on the very young Dylan, arriving in New York’s Greenwich Village in 1961 but then—feeling the burden of fame—lighting out for the territory in 1965. In Timothée Chalamet’s sensitive portrayal we see how much he owes to the friends he made along the way, but also how badly he wanted to cut ties that were all too binding.

  According to the film, perhaps the most important relationship he built was that with Pete Seeger, played by an excellent Edward Norton. They meet in the dismal hospital room where Pete is watching over the dying Woody Guthrie, a longtime Dylan hero. From the first, the two veteran folksingers are impressed by Dylan’s original ballads, and see him as the potential messiah who can bring young people into the folk music scene, with its emphasis on social awareness and the beauty of the acoustic guitar. Having survived two Dune films, Chalamet is clearly used to playing messiahs-in-the-making, but the point of A Complete Unknown is that he doesn’t want to be one.

 Nor does he want to be part of a permanent romantic couple. This lesson is ultimately learned by the women in his life. Elle Fanning’s Sylvie Russo (a re-naming at Dylan’s own request of the real-life Suze Rotolo) introduces him to social action, but is unable to penetrate his self-imposed inscrutability. Joan Baez, beautifully portrayed by Monica Barbaro, partners him on the stage and sometimes in bed, but can’t get him to play nice while on tour and refuses to be merely his occasional sexual conquest.

 Which brings me to the Dylan songs that explain it all. “It Ain’t Me, Babe” (a duet by Dylan and Baez in the film, while a stricken Sylvie looks on from the wings) makes clear he rejects any long-term romantic connection: “It ain’t me you’re looking for.”  The lyrics of “Don't Think Twice, It's All Right” seem to justify an itch to cut ties and hit the road. Most apt of all is the tune whose lyric gives the film its title. “Like a Rolling Stone” is the song of a loner “with no direction home,” one who is ultimately heading out on his motorcycle to points unknown. But perhaps the lyric that stays with me most is Guthrie’s own ditty as sung by Pete Seeger, depicted here as the gentle Mister Rogers of the folk music scene: “So long, it’s been good to know yuh . . . I’ve got to be driftin’ along.”