Dinner parties have long been cinema's favourite pressure cooker. Pour enough wine, add a few carefully concealed resentments and suddenly marriage, desire and identity are all laid bare (probably somewhere between the entrée and dessert). Olivia Wilde's latest directorial effort with A24, The Invite, (her first since 2020's Don't Worry Darling) is a film that follows that deliciously uncomfortable tradition – premised around trapping two couples around a dining table where innocuous conversations begin to flower into something painfully revealing.
But while we're itching to see the plot unfold, it appears that the film's most interesting moments comes after the story ends. Before the credits roll, a simple dedication appears on screen: For Diane. A name that needs no follow-up to clarify who exactly it speaks to. It's a tribute that speaks volumes – not only about Diane Keaton's influence on Wilde herself, but about the kind of women Hollywood still struggles to write as brilliantly as Keaton embodied them.
How does Diane Keaton influence The Invite?
Keaton, who played Wilde's mother in Love the Coopers, Wilde has since revealed, represented to her "a totally unique and complex woman" – someone who never fit neatly into an archetype, but instead embraced vulnerability, creativity and contradiction.
Long before "messy female protagonists" became a prestige television requirement, Keaton had already perfected the formula. Annie Hall wasn't perfect. Erica Barry in Something's Gotta Give wasn't interested in pretending she was twenty-five.
It's difficult to imagine a more fitting muse for a film about modern relationships – one where Wilde, Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton spend one increasingly combustible evening exposing disappointments and enduring tenderness.
Esther Perel's fingerprints are also on this story
That emotional nuance portrayed in the film wasn't accidental. Screenwriters Rashida Jones and Will McCormack have revealed they consulted renowned relationship therapist Esther Perel while adapting the screenplay, emerging with a renewed appreciation for marriage itself. Rather than treating relationships as something that either succeeds or fails, the film embraces Perel's belief that intimacy depends on continual evolution, forgiveness and the willingness to see your partner as someone still capable of changing.
It's a refreshingly adult perspective at a time when pop culture often prefers relationship binaries.
When and where can I watch the film?
The Invite is showing in Australian cinemas from 9 July 2026. You can book tickets through major cinema chains including Event Cinemas, HOYTS, Village Cinemas and Palace Cinemas.
The A24 film is not yet available to stream in Australia, with a digital release date still to be announced.
