Karyn Kusama directs The Invitation, which is enough of a reason to watch it. She is one of the rare biracial, Asian American, women filmmakers who has been making such solid movies as “Girlfight” (2000), “Aeon Flux” (2005), “Jennifer’s Body” (2009) and “Destroyer” (2018). She gets better with time. 

A man with his girlfriend accepts an invitation from his ex-wife and her current man, the one that she left him for after she met him at a grief group, to a dinner party at his former home. All their close friends are there, and none of them have seen each other for two years. Sounds as if there are plenty reasons not to go but wait! There is more. He notices changes to the place since the last time that he was there and unfamiliar, unsettling guests. Is he just freaked out or is something amiss?

My main quibble with The Invitation is that I cannot suspend disbelief that his girlfriend, a black woman, would have gone to that party considering what happens on the way. I will sign a waiver because during the denouement, her presence makes sense, and I plan to spoil the movie later, but they had absolutely zero chemistry, especially since she seemed to enjoy hanging out with anyone at the party except him, and I may have misunderstood, but I thought that she did not know those people.

Logan Marshall-Green, who played the protagonist in “Upgrade” (2018), plays Will, the ex-husband and does a great job balancing sensitivity and masculinity. Even though The Invitation is not a horror movie, Marshall-Green shares a lot of characteristics with the final girl, and the narrative exclusively reflects his point of view. Will observes everything, shows his emotions, and calls out inappropriate behavior. The film toys with the idea that he may be unreliable and paranoid because of his outbursts, which is unusual for a male protagonist.

The Invitation wants the viewer to question the concept of appropriateness, which is why it set at a dinner party in an affluent home in a beautiful location. Dinner parties do not display normal human interactions but superimpose roles on ordinary people that they feel compelled to follow.  Kusama creates a sumptuous setting, which makes us want Will to be wrong, but interspersed with Will’s flashbacks and the script’s dialogue peppered with lists of changes to the house, the fiction of familiarity and the renovated reality of confinement should be a noticeable red flag. 

When I watch movies, I like to play “which character would I be?” I am Claire. Other than Will, Claire refuses to follow the rules and change herself to accommodate societal expectations. Out of all the characters, including Will, she sticks out. Her wardrobe signals that she chooses comfort over the sleek beauty drag of adulthood. When she recognizes that the dinner party disguises an ulterior motive, she rejects it and asserts her autonomy. She even asserts her autonomy when others back up her choices. She can stand alone. Unlike Claire, I would have changed my mind and accepted that back up once I realized that conditions had changed since I was last outside. Yes, please. I also would not have stopped my car to chat with……

John Carroll Lynch mixes sensitivity and a hint of brutality as one of the unfamiliar guests. By simply casting Lynch, The Invitation signals its destination before he even gets to his monologue. Even though he has been in everything, I kept thinking about Lynch’s performance in “The Walking Dead” as Eastman. I found it difficult to believe that no one would suddenly find an excuse to run screaming out of that party after that moment. He steals The Invitation in seconds and firmly sets the trajectory of the film. 

With a run time of one hundred minutes, The Invitation takes too long to get to the expected denouement. Maybe I watch too many movies so it is only predictable to me, but because we do not know how events will unfold, heightened suspense and anticipation transforms into impatience. 

As a character study, The Invitation comments on the quality of friendships and romantic relationships, which made me find it painful to watch. I would not call these people real friends. Even the best marriages cannot withstand tragedy, but the beginning of the film suggests that the seed of imbalance existed before it struck. I would not call any of these people at 3 am to lean on. Their two-year estrangement signals their inability to depend on each other and makes a reunion seem inessential. They are superficial and so uncomfortable with negative emotions that they become pathological and dangerous. Toxic positivity raises no red flags when someone expresses zero guilt about causing grievous harm to a cherished person. Guilt is healthy in that context, and its absence suggests delusion or psychopathy, but no one cares because they are having a good time. People will sacrifice anything to feel good and have a good time.

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I love how The Invitation, Midsommar and Hereditary capture the arrogance of cults and to a certain extent, any religion or world belief that seeks to impose its will on autonomous individuals. The members of this cult prioritize their feelings over other people’s right to live. Regardless of whether these people even hold the same beliefs, the cult members decide to kill anyone that they want to hang out with in the afterlife. They act like a Pharoah and treat their friends like servants. Their sadness and suicidal ideation are disguised as enlightenment. The ex-wife, Eden, foams at the mouth as she implies that people are trying to take “this” away from her. Eden, you brought them here. You do not even like these people. You are taking something from them.

The Invitation is married to the idea that we should sympathize with Eden and the other cult members’ pain, but I read her firmly as a fifty-three percenter. Her wardrobe subconsciously indicates a Bride of Dracula quality when she welcomed her guests. While it would be less nuanced, I would have preferred if Kusama directed Tammy Blanchard, who plays Eden, to play her as a character oblivious to the anger underlying her altruistic reasons to kill her friends. I like the idea that she offers salvation because she cannot face how much she wants to kill these insensitive people and exorcise some of her pain. Blanchard reveals a bit of that sudden, unrecognized flash of anger in a scene with Ben, but because she cannot bear to face herself as the villain, she later overcompensates. Instead, we see her and other cult members regret their actions when they get a taste of self-defense violence. Eden repents as she expires.

Eden’s entitlement explains why she cannot survive her grief. The Invitation is a socioeconomic commentary that some people think that they should be above human experience and consequences. When people accept her hospitality, they do not realize that they will pay with their lives. It is as if she is the guy who pays for his date’s meal then feels ownership over the date’s body. They exist for her amusement. She paid for them in expensive wine and food which they greedily gobbled. 

I love The Invitation’s ending and am angry that we do not get to see the impact of the cult’s actions beyond that house just when things got interesting. It probably is a wise choice since Us’ storyline lost its momentum as it got more ambitious. Less is more.