movie reviews invitation

The Invitation

“The Invitation” is a dinner-party-from-hell scenario best served as unspoiled as possible. After all, a psychological thriller built upon slow-simmering tension is only as good as its surprises. Therefore, I will refrain from any major bean spillage and provide what I think is just enough to get you hooked.

However, there is one element of note that can be revealed and celebrated without peril. Filmmaker Karyn Kusama has at last fulfilled the promise she showed in her knockout feature debut, “ Girlfight ,” a pugilistic coming-of-age drama from 2000 that also launched the career of its scrappy star, Michelle Rodriguez . With “The Invitation,” Kusama appears to have gotten her lean-and-mean vision back into focus, one that went astray with 2005’s female-driven action flop “Aeon Flux” and 2009’s Diablo Cody-ized, flesh-eating cheerleader horror comedy “Jennifer’s Body.”

With backing courtesy of Gamechanger Films, which finances indie movies directed by women, Kusama seems to be freed from much of the commerce-minded constraints placed upon her by regular studios. It also feels refreshing if almost shocking that nearly all of the characters at this reunion of friends, which takes place in a sprawling mid-century-style abode in the Hollywood Hills, are in their 30s. In other words, they are allowed to be adults. No blatant pandering to the youthful demo here. Plus, the cast is casually diverse as it features both multiracial and Asian couples.

The script—written by Kusama’s husband, Phil Hay , and Matt Manfredi —divides the story’s action equally between the genders. While there is a bit of a “Big Chill” feel—grief and loss of a loved one is the film’s emotional engine—“The  Invitation” is primarily an intimate, highly effective chiller in a confined space with an armrest-grabber of a payoff.

The setup immediately provides cause for anxiety. Will ( Logan Marshall-Green , all haunted eyes and exposed nerves) and Kira (nicely low-key Emayatzy Corinealdi of “ Miles Ahead ”) driving along a twisty high-altitude road. Not without trepidation, they are headed to a gathering held in Will’s former home. It is being thrown by his ex-wife, Eden ( Tammy Blanchard , all ruby red lips and clingy white gown), who he hasn’t seen  in two years , and her new husband, David ( Michiel Huisman , whose specialty is scruffy hunks on TV shows like “ Nashville ” and “Treme”).

Foreshadowing comes into play early when Will’s car suddenly hits a coyote. He puts the injured animal out of its misery by whacking it with a tire iron. Once they reach their destination, a shaken Will and Kira are warmly greeted both by their friends in attendance but also by their touchy-feely hosts. Toasting “new beginnings,” David breaks out some triple-digit bottles of fine wine and everyone gets cozy—save for Will, especially after he spies a female stranger down the hall sans pants and panties.

Turns out, there are two unknown quantities joining the festivities. Manic pixie nut Sadie ( Lindsay Burdge ), now wearing a mini dress, and Pruitt, an older balding man (the ever-invaluable John Carroll Lynch ). David and Eden explain that they met them in Mexico where they were visiting a community—a cult as it were, where they learned to deal with trauma.

Soon enough, David hauls out his laptop and shows his guests what amounts to a recruitment video—one that ends with a rather disturbing and unexpected sequence. Will, already suspicious, now has his hackles on high alert.  When he makes the observation that Eden, David and their fellow cult members are weird, a fellow partier replies, “Yeah, they’re a little weird. But this is L.A. They’re harmless.”

Of course, similar statements were probably made about the Manson family, too.

Kusama keeps us guessing for quite a while, maybe for too long. Is Will, prone to unsettling flashbacks of life with his former spouse, just imagining things or should everyone run for their lives? Then again, Lynch has major creepy cred as the prime suspect in 2007’s “ Zodiac ” and Blanchard’s Eden, for all her talk of tossing aside her anger, certainly can deliver one a hell of a slap when someone declares her new belief system to be “fucking crazy.” Plus, that dinner—as delicious as it looks—arrives awfully late in the proceedings. I would have been out of there hours ago, if only because of hunger pangs.

Some clues that suggest something might be afoot turn out to be red herrings. But others, not so much.

Taut pacing is, indeed, a virtue in these sorts of intense circumstances and that is one place where Kusama could improve her game. But, to her credit, she has picked her cast wisely—Marshall-Green especially, who acts as the viewer’s guide and keeps the proceedings honest without stooping to overacting. And the film ends on a clever visual note that is open to debate. In other words, this is an “ Invitation” you should RSVP with a “will attend.”

Susan Wloszczyna

Susan Wloszczyna spent much of her nearly thirty years at USA TODAY as a senior entertainment reporter. Now unchained from the grind of daily journalism, she is ready to view the world of movies with fresh eyes.

• Mike Doyle as Tommy
• Logan Marshall-Green as Will
• Tammy Blanchard as Eden
• Karl Yune as Choi
• Emayatzy Corinealdi as Kira
• Michiel Huisman as David
• Marieh Delfino as Claire
• Lindsay Burdge as Sadie
• John Carroll Lynch as Pruitt
• Toby Huss as Dr. Joseph
• Michelle Krusiec as Gina

Cinematographer

• Bobby Shore
• Karyn Kusama
• Matt Manfredi
• Plummy Tucker
• Theodore Shapiro

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‘The Invitation’ Review: Bringing Down the Haunted House

Nathalie Emmanuel stars as the unwitting belle of an English manor in this middling gothic horror movie that leaves her blind to the blood-red flags waving at every turn.

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By Natalia Winkelman

“The Invitation,” a brittle, droning excursion into gothic horror, primarily takes place at a manor in the English countryside. The setting is admissible, if unimaginative: the exterior of the estate appears constructed of Playmobil; coated in cobwebs, its dingy indoors most closely resemble a dungeon.

Outside of the cinema, an invitation to such an abode would ring a cacophony of alarm bells and leave a guest clambering for the door. Not so for Evie (Nathalie Emmanuel), a jaded ceramist in New York who unwittingly becomes the belle of the dwelling after a long-lost cousin, Oliver (Hugh Skinner), invites her to a wedding on its grounds. An only child who recently lost her mother, Evie is tickled by the prospect of extended family, even if the stuffy brood are uniformly white and ominously keen for her company.

But soon, Oliver and his vast array of blond brothers and uncles hardly figure into the equation. Once Evie arrives on the property, she takes a shine to the lord of the residence, Walter (Thomas Doherty), a smirking bachelor dripping in wealth and vampiric good looks.

What follows is an escalating sequence of creaky-freaky jump scares interspersed with beats from a budding romance between Walter and Evie. Dressed to the nines, the pair drink champagne and smooch under a flurry of fireworks. At the same time, the estate’s maids are sucked into a menacing string of set pieces that invariably end in shrieks over a black screen.

The juxtaposition of these events might be exciting — or even mischievously funny — if each scene wasn’t so tedious. For a fright-fest as broad as this one, there’s an awful lot of banal dialogue, and the scare patterns are repetitive enough that even the easiest startlers (I count myself among them) grow immune early on.

Directed by Jessica M. Thompson, “The Invitation” makes feeble gestures at issues of class and race, but its efforts are as diffuse as the whooshing specters haunting Walter’s estate. Emmanuel, for her part, admirably endeavors to imbue Evie with smarts and sass, but confined within a story that leaves her blind to the blood-red flags waving at every turn, her scrappy heroine is hard to cheer on. Had the movie emerged as a friskier game of eat the rich, it might have had a fighting chance of survival. Instead, it’s middling, morbid pap.

The Invitation Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 44 minutes. In theaters.

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‘The Invitation’ Review: Nathalie Emmanuel Gets Sucked Into a Languishing Legacy

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It’s not hard to tell something is off about New Carfax Manor, where the maids’ aprons are numbered and supposedly carnivorous birds roam the skies. Sitting somewhere in England’s creepiest countryside, the mansion’s implausibly cream-colored Barbie Dreamhouse exterior belies its shadowy Gothic insides; all dark corners and drafty bedrooms with bars on the windows (to keep the birds out, so they say). The grounds provide an eerie enough setting for “ The Invitation ,” a Gothic horror thriller in the style of “Dracula” with a half-baked attempt at “Get Out”-style social critique thrown in. Part inert bodice-ripper, part vampire Cinderella story, its mixed themes could have benefitted from a purer bloodline.

Arriving like a lamb lost in the woods (or led to the slaughter) is Evie ( Nathalie Emmanuel ), an aspiring ceramicist who makes her living as a cater waiter in New York. When her friend swipes a swag bag from an upscale gig, she discovers a free trial for a DNA site called Find Yourself, like 23andMe for the elite. Recently orphaned, she can’t help but feel curious when her search turns up a match in an overly enthusiastic Brit named Oliver (Hugh Skinner). Her long lost cousin happens to be loaded, delighted to make her acquaintance, and invites her on an all expenses paid trip to England to attend a posh family wedding.

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Undeterred by the oily glee with which Oliver delivers the phrase, “Great Uncle Alfred is dying to meet you,” Evie pulls up to Carfax in total awe. Though she’s introduced as a woman of the people, kindly helping pick up the glassware she caused the maids to drop, she loses all spine once she encounters the Lord of the house. Pompous and devilishly handsome with a jaw so sharp it could draw blood, Walter DeVille (Thomas Doherty) takes an immediate liking to Evie. It’s hard to understand why she returns his affections after hearing the way he speaks to his staff, but some handy exposition via phone calls to her friend Grace (Courtney Taylor) back home rewrites the scene to appear chivalrous.

The creepiness continues when Evie is introduced to her long lost family members, all of whom are old white men. “So many boys, we thought we were done for,” announces shriveled Uncle Alfred from behind his eye patch, and the room erupts in an cacophany of evil harumphs. On the phone with Grace again, she inexplicably calls Uncle Alfred sweet and admits she almost shed a tear during his chilling speech.

Unbeknownst to Evie, the Butler is lining up the maids and calling them off by numbers, where they’re being locked in the library and served as dinner to a mysterious creature with claw-like fingernails. In her nightmares, Evie sees visions of the woman who hung herself in the house, and is startled by a bird smacking dead into the window. As her romance with Walt heats up, so do the house’s quirks, and she finds herself visited in the night by the clawed creature.

Written by Blair Butler and directed by Jessica M. Thompson , “The Invitation” has a distinct air of white feminism wafting through it. Initially titled “The Bride,” Thompson recently told IndieWire they renamed the movie when the original didn’t track well with male audiences. That sad anecdote offers a small sense of what even white women directors are up against in Hollywood, but “The Invitation” does little to slip subversive themes into its milquetoast social commentary.

When Evie is finally offered her deal with the devil, she is promised “wealth, power, a life of privilege, a sense of belonging.” Talk of bloodlines, elitism, privilege, and power drones through the movie, but Evie’s final resistance lacks any of the bite that would drive home her refutation of such ideals. She spends the entire movie romanticizing wealth and power, only turning her back on them when it’s revealed she’ll have to kill to keep them. The pace picks up when the slashing finally begins in the third act, but it’s too little, too late to get the blood going.

A Sony release, “The Invitation” is now in theaters.

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It may be difficult to name a work of horror fiction that has so undeniably sunk its teeth into centuries of pop culture than Bram Stoker 's Dracula . The epistolary novel first published in 1897 was initially regarded as a Gothic work, but laid the foundation for many a vampire tale that would follow thereafter. If the titular Transylvanian count had never been created, it's difficult to say whether these fanged creatures of the night would have been as popular as they are today — but the world of Dracula is one that, all these years later, continues to be ripe for drawing stories from. Most adaptations or reimaginings tend to focus on the vampire himself, but more and more are beginning to veer away from that focus in favor of prioritizing other characters at their center. In the conceit of the original novel, Dracula's mysterious and seductive vampire brides only appear briefly, but their impact has continued to live on.

This year's The Invitation , directed by Jessica M. Thompson and written by Blair Butler , draws inspiration from that element of the classic story in following an unsuspecting American woman named Evie ( Nathalie Emmanuel ) who travels to the English countryside after receiving an invite to a wedding from an extended family she's only just discovered she has. Over the course of her stay in the impressive mansion, Evie finds herself trapped between the promise of romance and horror, wrestling over whether to give into the possibility of a relationship with the manor's handsome lord Walter ( Thomas Doherty ) as barely-glimpsed threats lurk around her room each night.

The Invitation roots itself in embracing many of the best and most timeless Gothic tropes — with a modern flair, of course, but bringing a story like this to the present day wouldn't be nearly as successful if it wasn't for the actress grounding the supernatural in more realism. Emmanuel, who fans may already be familiar with for her roles in Game of Thrones and several Fast & Furious movies, plays an endearing heroine in Evie, a part-time caterer and struggling artist still grieving the loss of her mother, which leads her to search for any hint of remaining family she might be able to discover courtesy of a mail-in DNA test. The surprising results, in turn, put her in touch with a long-lost cousin, Oliver ( Hugh Skinner ), who endearingly fumbles his way through inviting her to an upcoming wedding across the pond — and once she accepts, Evie finds herself in a realm she's completely unprepared to navigate.

RELATED: ‘The Invitation’ Trailer Shows Not All Family Can Be Trusted

Emmanuel's character is our entry point into the story, but also the fresh-eyed perspective that comes to the manor house with a clear preference of prioritizing sincerity over propriety. From being too helpful with the maids to insisting on cleaning up after herself, Evie's rejection of the way things are simply just done immediately puts her at odds with the butler, Mr. Fields (a scene-gnawing Sean Pertwee of Gotham fame), and their clashing continues even into the film's most climactic moments. Contrast to that tension, however, is the reassuring presence of Mrs. Swift ( Carol Ann Crawford ), the head housekeeper, whose complicated emotions about the manor's newest guest don't prevent her from becoming a valued ally to Evie when she needs it the most.

While the staff is significantly more conflicted about Evie's presence, there is one person who openly welcomes her with charm practically oozing out of his pores — Walter. With his piercing blue eyes and a jaw well-defined enough to possibly cut through glass itself, Doherty has been perfectly cast as the English gentleman more than capable of wooing Evie from top to bottom, and his chemistry with Emmanuel immediately sells the belief that these characters would develop a connection in the midst of whatever horrors the manor house is hiding. Later on, he proves just as compelling a presence on-screen when the Alexander family's intentions for their newly-discovered relative are ultimately revealed — and in the most horrifying fashion possible. Doherty feels equally at home playing either the romantic lead or the manipulator driven by his own secret motives, and as the latter gradually and unnervingly emerges, it's heartbreaking enough to throw all of Walter's previous actions into question but equally thrilling to get to watch Doherty embrace all the darkest edges of the character's potential.

Rounding out the cast are the so-called maids of honor, the women who have been tapped to serve the unseen bride at her impending nuptials and couldn't be more different from one another in presence but offer Evie a myriad of personalities to bounce off of. The tall, intimidating Viktoria (played by Mr. Robot 's Stephanie Corneliussen ) is at odds with her from the start, pairing thinly-veiled insults with equally disconcerting microaggressions against Evie's background, but by contrast, Lucy ( Uncharted 's Alana Boden ) is a kind, welcoming presence, making consistent attempts to rope Evie in on fun pre-wedding activities. Granted, even something as innocent as a spa day adopts a particularly ominous tone; one of the most tension-filled scenes in the entire movie happens over the course of the three getting manicures in a room deep within the manor, one that comes closest to resembling a tomb in and of itself. The film's primary location, Nádasdy Castle in Budapest, only contributes to the overall sense of history and legacy; none of the movie's scenes would be nearly as effective without the bones of such a place serving as their backdrop.

It's also in this environment where the horror truly begins — slow and foreboding rather than too reliant on jumpscares, offering a creeping sense that something isn't quite right each time the sun sets and everyone has turned in for the night — and while Evie is tormented in her own room, terrified by specters that only disappear once she turns on the light, even darker threats persist elsewhere, with unsuspecting staff finding themselves the victims of a dark and looming figure that pulls them into the shadows and cuts off their resulting screams. Thompson and director of photography Autumn Eakin prove themselves an expert pair when it comes to ratcheting up the suspense, with clever cuts and lighting that do more to make the monsters frightening sight unseen in a majority of the film; even when the reveal happens, the camerawork that results contributes to that sickening feeling of realization, as artifice is stripped away and the real purpose of the wedding is laid bare. The third act, however, is where The Invitation notably struggles, as if attempting to plant itself squarely in the divide between suspense and action movie when it really thrived most as the former. When the film leans into its indisputable strengths, the result is bitingly good horror; any attempts to swerve outside that vein result in a more toothless execution. Ultimately, though, The Invitation offers an inventive reimagining of a literary classic while asserting itself as a fun addition to the modern Gothic canon.

The Invitation will premiere exclusively in theaters nationwide on August 26.

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The Invitation is a waste of perfectly good evil vampires

It’s a boring riff on Ready or Not meets Get Out, with none of the fun of either

by Austen Goslin

Vampires are cinema’s most malleable monsters . They can sparkle , skateboard , yell “bat” , or do gymnastics , all while fulfilling their bloodsucking duties. In the horror movie The Invitation , vampires take on their more familiar role as society’s rich and powerful, as an unlucky human guest joins them for the weekend. The Invitation comes from director Jessica M. Thompson ( The Light of the Moon ), and while it pulls inspiration from several recent and successful out-of-place houseguest horror movies like Get Out and Ready or Not , The Invitation never manages to be scary, and it hides its vampires behind a lifeless love story.

The Invitation follows Evie (Nathalie Emmanuel), an unhappy and over-it gig-caterer in New York who’s fed up with her dead-end job, desperate to follow her passion for ceramics, and still reeling from her mother’s recent death. One day, Evie snags a gift bag from a swanky event she’s catering and tries out the included DNA testing kit. The test connects her to a previously unknown branch of her family that lives among the upper crust of English society. Before Evie knows it, she’s been invited to a mysterious wedding at an English estate, where she meets and quickly falls for the enigmatic Walter (Thomas Doherty), the lord of the manor.

This series of events takes almost all of the movie’s 105-minute run time to play out. That may surprise viewers who’ve seen any of the promotional material for this movie, which is far more focused on the story’s vampiric presence. The bait-and-switch of subbing a dubious romance in for vampire violence wouldn’t be much of a problem if the movie were willing to invest in the Gothic style and foreboding atmosphere that helps make vampire love stories timelessly creepy. Instead, Thompson is content with awkward flirting that’s shot as blandly as a one-season-only Netflix teen series.

Even though the story rests almost solely on viewers believing Walter is subtly seducing the worldly and cautious Evie, Emmanuel and Doherty never muster much chemistry beyond both being attractive people. The stiff, exposition-heavy dialogue never manages to make either character interesting, and it barely leaves room for the actors to add any spark or genuine emotion to the confounding romance.

Even stranger, the movie’s script, from Hell Fest co-writer Blair Butler, goes to great lengths to convince viewers that Evie is too smart to fall prey to the lures of old money. As a Black woman who has lived her whole life in the United States and knows what it’s like to be the disrespected server at a rich person’s party (even though she has a killer New York City apartment), Evie constantly sympathizes with the wedding’s ill-fated servants, and swears to her best friend that she’d never fall prey to the trappings of wealth and the luxuries colonialism paid for. Then she does. Right away. With no convincing, and no charm from Walter whatsoever. While her sudden susceptibility might suggest something supernatural is at play — something that might have helped sell the romance, and given her a meaningful internal struggle — The Invitation never makes any hints that that’s the case.

In fact, Evie’s only reason for thinking Walter is anything other than a rich playboy with a big house is that he apologizes to her for his butler being rude. (Yes, it’s the help’s fault when something goes wrong for Evie. No, the filmmakers do not acknowledge the irony.) The Invitation is desperate to try to replicate the awkward fish-out-of-water terror of Jordan Peele’s Get Out , without realizing that part of what made that movie so eerie is the implication of a loving, meaningful relationship between the protagonist and one of the villains, which started well before the movie begins.

The tedious flirtation in The Invitation is occasionally punctuated by scenes that bring the movie a little closer to the horror and moodiness that its vampiric premise promises. There are a few scenes of mysterious creatures lurking in shadows, or locked rooms that guard unseemly creatures of the night. These brief horror scenes are shot in an overly dark manner, with tacky blue lighting that obscures almost all of the action. But they at least manage tension for a few seconds at a time, and they provide a bit of the foreboding atmosphere that the rest of the movie is sorely lacking.

Finally, in its last 25 minutes, The Invitation turns into the vampire-slaying action movie Sony wanted audiences to believe it is for the whole run time. During a suitably creepy dinner — the movie’s most effective scene, thanks to the dozen or so masked vampire cultists — Walter finally explains his full vampiric machinations to Evie. The movie seems intent on revealing this information as a twist, but considering it not only makes up most of the trailer but is also hinted at in the movie’s prologue, Evie’s shock at the reveal ends up feeling like the most surprising part of the scene, especially given the broad hints at something weird and nefarious happening.

Once the cat’s out of the bag, The Invitation finally transforms into its best self, a vaguely angry movie about a woman who’s fed up with all these vampires and would very much like to kill them. The action itself is mostly lackluster and bloodless, and it never reaches the giddy violence or entertaining heights of Ready or Not , the movie The Invitation feels most indebted to. At least it’s more exciting than Evie and Walter’s baffling courtship.

One part Get Out , one part Ready or Not , and too few parts Dracula , The Invitation is a pastiche of infinitely better horror stories that it never measures up to. You can make vampires do almost anything in movies, but The Invitation commits the one unforgivable sin: making vampires boring.

The Invitation opens in theaters on Aug. 26.

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• DVD & Streaming

The Invitation

• Drama , Horror

Content Caution

In Theaters

• August 26, 2022
• Nathalie Emmanuel as Evie; Thomas Doherty as Walter; Hugh Skinner as Oliver; Stephanie Corneliussen as Viktoria; Alana Boden as Lucy; Sean Pertwee as Mr. Fields; Courtney Taylor as Grace

Home Release Date

• September 16, 2022
• Jessica M. Thompson

Distributor

• Sony Pictures Entertainment

Movie Review

Evie is a what some might call a struggling artist in New York City. Or at least she hopes to live up to that description someday. Right now, though, she’s more of a part-time server for a catering service. And the fact that she’s pretty has brought in more cash than any of her ceramic artwork has.

And to be blunt, that harsh truth and her mom’s recent death have left her a little depressed.

She feels so disconnected and lonely, in fact, that she decides to submit a DNA test she was gifted. Who knows, maybe she has some wealthy long-lost relatives who would lend her a bit of seed money for her dreams.

To Evie’s surprise, she does have some unknown relatives—an English cousin named Oliver. He just so happens to be in town for his realty business. They agree to meet for dinner. And Evie learns quite a bit about her family history.

It seems that her great grandmother’s affair with a member of the local gentry was quite the scandal way back when. And as Evie and cousin Oliver smile and chat their way through the meal, she reveals that her mother had always talked about one day going to England. At this, Oliver perks up.

“There’s a wedding coming up,” he says. “You should come. Everyone is dying to meet you.” He even agrees to pay her way. What’s a little cash and airline points between family members?

So, Evie goes. And while rolling up to the new Carfax Abbey estate, where the wedding is to be held, she gapes at the splendor of the place. It makes TV’s Downton Abbey look like a guest house. Oh, and the aristocratic young owner? He turns out to be as impossibly handsome and charming, as if he stepped out of a Jane Austin novel.

Not only that, but this well-heeled gent, Walter Deville, and all the crisply starched wedding guests and relatives are earnestly happy to meet Evie. She’s not just an ignored workerbee with a tray of hors d’oeuvres like she would be back in New York. It’s almost like she’s the guest of honor.

Could this possibly be real? And for that matter, where are the bride and groom? Shouldn’t they be the ones getting all the attention?

“The groom and the bride will make their grand entrance tomorrow,” Evie is told. Tonight, is more of a reunion. The wedding celebration will happen in its time. So, Evie settles in to enjoy the unexpected attention, the champagne, the handsome company. It’s all like a dream.

Of course, the problem with a dream is that it’s not always as pleasant as it might first seem. Nightmares are dreams, too.

Positive Elements

Evie has a good friend in New York named Grace, and they stay in touch through regular phone calls. Grace is lovingly supportive of her friend. Evie also listens to a recorded phone message from her deceased mom who speaks words of love and encouragement.

Someone risks their life to save an innocent.

Spiritual Elements

It’s very evident that this is a vampire flick. And from the very first scene we see eerie shadowed creatures suddenly appearing behind characters or crawling on the walls and ceiling. Evie also sees shadowy figures in the dark of her room and above her canopied bed while staying at Carfax Abbey.

The spiritual nature of these undead creatures is not discussed at any length. It’s just assumed that the audience knows of these dark, otherworldly beings. A vampire declares himself a god.

A man chants in what appears to be Latin after placing several women in deadly situations. But nothing directly religious or faith-focused is used here (a cross, holy water, etc.). There is, however, a statue in an outer courtyard depicting the biblical Eve with a serpent and an apple.

Sexual & romantic Content

Walter Deville is indeed a very charming man. And he regularly flirts with Evie. Eventually the two begin kissing and they fall into bed together while stripping off their clothes. We see bare shoulders and backs and then, as the film jumps to after their intimate interlude, the pair lay in bed and Walter’s chiseled torso is exposed. We also see the pair both wearing somewhat revealing nightwear tops.

Evie and two female guests, Lucy and Viktoria, join other ladies for a spa day. Viktoria strips off her robe and swims naked in a pool adorned with scattered rose petals. We see her fully naked from the rear as she swims.

Women wear low-cut, cleavage-baring gowns.

At a catered event, Evie and Grace talk about being groped and touched by the male patrons. And Grace suggests that Evie should “snog” someone.

Violent Content

[ Spoiler Warning ] As the movie starts, a troubled young woman hangs herself from a banister with piano wire. We’re told that creatures of the night can only be killed by being impaled, having their heads cut off or by burning. We see two of those things take place.

Vampires claw and flail at mortals and each other with sharp fingernails. One of them drives its nails into a woman’s chest. Someone is stabbed in the chest with a large stake. Another is impaled with the tip of a spear. A third person is set afire in a huge blaze. (The head lopping is left for another time.)

Female maids are grabbed and abused (mostly just off camera). We see one young woman’s neck snapped. Another has her throat slashed and then she’s held over a punch bowl while her blood drains. (Several vampires drink from this bowl.) Someone lifts a dazed woman’s bare leg and bites her ankle, drinking from her. The camera spots the corpses of dead women. We see one with puncture holes on her neck.

A man wields a bloody cleaver, and later we see one of his victims tossed down on a table, a large gash on her forehead dribbling blood. A man slashes open his own wrist and allows someone to drink his blood.

A manicurist cuts open Evie’s cuticle. The young protagonist is battered about and stabbed in the course of an evening. A young woman is knocked unconscious by a large blunt object. A man’s face is burned when splashed with hot tea.

Crude or Profane Language

There are two f-words and a half-dozen s-words in the dialogue. “H—” and “a–hole” are exclaimed a couple times each as well. Someone calls a guy a “douchebag.” And God’s name is misused twice.

Drug and Alcohol Content

At the wedding celebration, the family reunion and a New York catered event, booze, wine and champagne flow freely. Nearly everyone is holding a glass filled with some alcoholic beverage. Evie drinks beer at home.

Other noteworthy Elements

An elderly couple betrays someone’s trust.

Like too many unfortunate films before it, the trailer for The Invitation lets all of its important plot points out of the bag. (Or should I say … coffin.) And even if you haven’t seen that advert, well, this horror pic’s foreshadowing is so hamfistedly delivered that no one in the theater will be the least bit surprised by its “big surprise.”

Or anything else, for that matter.

For those still wondering what unsavory content they may encounter, let me give a quick list: Characters make out and reveal PG-13 levels of laying-in-bed-after-sex skin. There’s neck-snapping, stabbing, burning, throat slashing, drain-your-blood-into-a-punchbowl violence. And you’ll find a modicum of nasty language and lots of champagne flute sipping.

As for entertainment, well, that’s as absent as a tuxedo-clad Transylvanian in a garlic factory.

After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.

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Flickering Myth

Geek Culture | Movies, TV, Comic Books & Video Games

Movie Review – The Invitation (2022)

February 1, 2023 by Robert Kojder

The Invitation , 2022.

Directed by Jessica M. Thompson. Starring Nathalie Emmanuel, Thomas Doherty, Stephanie Corneliussen, Alana Boden, Hugh Skinner, Kata Sarbó, Scott Alexander Young, Virág Bárány, Sean Pertwee, Elizabeth Counsell, Courtney Taylor, Jeremy Wheeler, and Carol Ann Crawford.

After her mother’s death, Evie is approached by an unknown cousin who invites her to a lavish wedding in the English countryside. Soon, she realizes a gothic conspiracy is afoot and must fight for survival as she uncovers twisted secrets in her family’s history.

The Invitation is the latest misguided Get Out pale limitation with no rudimentary understanding of why that socially charged narrative was tense, provocative, and poignant. Directed by Jessica M. Thompson, the film centers on working-class woman Evie (Nathalie Emmanuel), who, while still grieving her father and the recent loss of her mother, decides to take a DNA test searching for more ancestors. 

The test results bring up a distant cousin eager to meet up. Dismissing the justifiable concerns from her good friend Grace (Courtney Taylor in the designated comic relief Black friend communicating via technology role, which seems to be obligatory for these modern-day vacation getaways-from-hell horror stories), Evie is treated to a fancy dinner and invited to a high-status wedding over at his rich friends’ colossal, Gothic English countryside estate.

Given the creepy statues and paintings (not to mention the pitch-black photography), it’s evident that something is off here. To be fair, a prologue of a woman committing suicide trying to escape has already confirmed that. Nevertheless, Evie falls head over heels for the mansion owner, Walter (Thomas Doherty, who is at least trying to make the most of this material that has him wearing multiple personality masks). Unlike the cruel butler, Walter treats the staff with human dignity and respect, is self-deprecating, aware of his privilege, and not above offering an apology when he makes a mistake. He is also hot, which has Evie further surrendering to his charms (with influence from Grace).

It’s not that The Invitation spends far too much time on this romantic angle that drains it of any life force, but rather how boring and suspense-free it’s executed. A twist on the horizon is all well and good, but if it’s going to be this obvious and come so late in the narrative, there needs to be some sharp social commentary alongside funhouse thrills. The Invitation unequivocally fails to find anything engaging in the falling for one another honeymoon phase. The horror aspect is certainly more entertaining but also unbelievably cheesy for a story that desperately wants to make a memorable class warfare statement.

It should also be said that the below-the-line team has done solid work, crafting exquisitely colorful dresses, an eerie setting, and the occasional appealing visual. The rest of this invitation should be discarded in the trash. Bafflingly, these filmmakers have tried to set up a sequel for The Invitation , and while this movie is nowhere near the disaster some films not screened for critics typically turn out to be, I would rather donate blood than attend a successor. Rescind the invitation.

Flickering Myth Rating  – Film: ★ ★  / Movie: ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check  here  for new reviews, follow my  Twitter  or  Letterboxd , or email me at [email protected]

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The invitation.

• Common Sense Says
• Parents Say 0 Reviews
• Kids Say 12 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

Smart, emotional thriller with violence and a creepy cult.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Invitation is a thriller with some bloody/gory, horror-style scenes. There's lots of fighting, punching, bashing, shooting, and stabbing, with plenty of blood and many dead bodies. A coyote is run over by a car and must be put out of its misery (it's bashed with a tire…

Why Age 17+?

An extremely gory climax, with shootings, stabbings, poison, fighting, and strug

A woman naked from the waist down is seen in the shadows, briefly glimpsed. Man

Not frequent, but several uses of "f--k," "motherf----r," &q

Wine at a dinner party. Some whisky. Bottle of pills (barbiturates) shown. Refer

Any Positive Content?

Reminds us that people have different ways of dealing with grief and that there&

Will seems brave and clever, he speaks out when things don't feel quite righ

Violence & Scariness

An extremely gory climax, with shootings, stabbings, poison, fighting, and struggling; many characters die, and bodies are seen. A woman falls and smashes her head into a table. Lots of blood. A car runs over a coyote, and it must be killed (bashed with a tire iron off screen). Disturbing story of a man punching and killing his wife.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A woman naked from the waist down is seen in the shadows, briefly glimpsed. Man and a woman shown in a bathtub, kissing. Woman's breasts briefly seen. Same-sex and opposite-sex kissing. Brief sex talk. Blow job reference.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Not frequent, but several uses of "f--k," "motherf----r," "s--t," and "a--hole," plus "Jesus" (as an exclamation).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Wine at a dinner party. Some whisky. Bottle of pills (barbiturates) shown. References to cocaine. Reference to a recovering cocaine addict.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

Reminds us that people have different ways of dealing with grief and that there's no real right way or wrong way to do it (unless, of course, that way includes killing people). It's also a warning against cult mentality.

Positive Role Models

Will seems brave and clever, he speaks out when things don't feel quite right, and he keeps his wits about him when everything starts to fall apart. But he's mostly just an ordinary guy trying to make the best of a bad situation.

Parents need to know that The Invitation is a thriller with some bloody/gory, horror-style scenes. There's lots of fighting, punching, bashing, shooting, and stabbing, with plenty of blood and many dead bodies. A coyote is run over by a car and must be put out of its misery (it's bashed with a tire iron off screen). A man and a woman are seen in a bathtub, with her breasts briefly visible; a woman who's naked from the waist down is also briefly glimpsed in the shadows, and there's both same-sex and opposite-sex kissing. Language isn't constant but does include "f--k," "s--t," and "a--hole." Characters drink socially throughout the film, and cocaine and pills are shown and/or referenced. There are positive representations of a gay couple and an interracial couple. Ultimately this is a smart, well-made thriller that should provide food for thought for mature viewers. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say
• Kids say (12)

There aren't any parent reviews yet. Be the first to review this title.

What's the Story?

Will ( Logan Marshall-Green ) and Kira ( Emayatzy Corinealdi ) drive to a dinner party and accidentally run over a coyote, which sends a foreboding chill over the evening. They're headed to the home of Eden (Tammy Blanchard) and David (Michiel Huisman). We learn that Will and Eden once had a son, but that a tragedy took him away. Two years have passed, and Eden has been out of touch with Will and her friends, spending time in Mexico with a kind of cult, learning how to handle her pain. After watching a shocking video about the group's beliefs and practices, Will begins to think that something terribly sinister is afoot, but he can't quite get a handle on what it is. Could his own grief be distorting his reason, or are his dark feelings correct?

Is It Any Good?

This shocker of a thriller is an intelligent, atmospheric slow burn that spends its early moments on interactions and emotions, avoiding obvious exposition or setups. Logically, anything can happen. Marshall-Green anchors the first part of the movie with his watchful, soft-spoken performance, dealing with pain and suspicion in equal measure. Will has re-entered his old house for the first time in two years, and flashbacks to time with his son are appropriately heart-rending, placing him perfectly off-balance from the rest of the characters.

Director Karyn Kusama ( Girlfight , Aeon Flux , Jennifer's Body ) uses the house as a vivid character, with muted lighting and clever staging to subtly highlight conflicts. Two outsiders (played by John Carroll Lynch and Lindsay Burdge ) are also ingeniously placed to brilliantly tense effect. A brutal climax upsets the mood ever so slightly, bringing THE INVITATION closer to a standard horror pic, but an eerie coda more than makes up for it.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about The Invitation 's violence . How does the movie use it to escalate the plot? What's the impact of media violence on kids?

How is sex used in the story? In what scenes does it appear to be connected to love, and in what scenes is it used for something else? Parents, talk to your teens about your own values regarding sex and relationships?

What are some of the ways that a person can mourn and deal with the death of a loved one? Can you think of movies that address this topic in other ways?

What is a cult? Why are they attractive? Why are they scary?

Movie Details

• In theaters : April 8, 2016
• On DVD or streaming : July 26, 2016
• Cast : Logan Marshall-Green , Emayatzy Corinealdi , Tammy Blanchard
• Director : Karyn Kusama
• Inclusion Information : Female directors, Asian directors, Female actors, Black actors, Latino actors
• Studio : Drafthouse Films
• Genre : Thriller
• Run time : 100 minutes
• MPAA rating : NR
• Last updated : July 22, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

What to watch next.

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Thriller movies, scary movies for kids.

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

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The Invitation Reviews

Despite it being obvious that he is a bad decision, you will still root for Evie to hook up with Walter. There are worst fates.

Full Review | Jun 9, 2024

…turning inside out the kind of Prince and Me daydream about marrying into royalty feels like the right subject for horror, even if most of the thrills are all generated by the rizz of the young cast rather than the narrative…

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 1, 2024

It lives or dies by how much you're willing to just hang with the cast as they chew scenery and pretend we didn't already know what's really going on.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Jan 6, 2023

The Invitation is a satisfying retelling of a classic literary monster with lots of gothic horror goodness along the way.

Full Review | Jan 4, 2023

The simmering, building romance unfolds at a steady pace. This may not light a fire in BookTok circles, but the structure fits decades of romance storytelling.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Dec 31, 2022

It cannot rise above how generic and dull a lot of it is, never bringing the story to satisfying conclusions.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Nov 30, 2022

Nothing to re-invent the wheel certainly, and not always subtle but still effectively entertaining and with some nice little references for fans of the lingering source material.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 10, 2022

While this has decent horror elements and fun performances, it’s overly predictable and loses its steam when you figure out what’s going on.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 4, 2022

The Invitation begins with a great premise and also succeeds in keeping you hooked for most of the part, but it's only when the film enters its climax, the plot goes haywire and misses the plot.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 2, 2022

Forgettable fluff.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Oct 27, 2022

...a workable premise that’s employed to somewhat watchable yet ultimately lackluster effect by Thompson...

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 22, 2022

With several tongue-in-cheek moments, countless Easter eggs and nods to vampiric lore (one character is named Harker), The Invitation is a luscious gothic horror that doesn’t ask you to take it too seriously.

Full Review | Oct 3, 2022

There’s no glitz or glamour to set it apart from the pack, and that’s ultimately [The Invitation's] demise.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 27, 2022

Loses on all counts by offering neither an effective genre film – the horror in it is zero – nor a thematically complex work. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Sep 26, 2022

An unimaginative Dracula-inspired horror tale told in a gothic style concerning issues over race and class.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Sep 22, 2022

At times "The Invitation" feels like someone wrote, "what if Prince Harry was a vampire" on a whiteboard and called it a day.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/10 | Sep 21, 2022

Tries to play the long game of a slow burn which offers more opportunities to consider loopholes in the rules followed by the evil handsome used to ensnare our heroine. Slowly.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Sep 21, 2022

Nathalie Emmanuel and Thomas Doherty are magnetic in this well-crafted and thrilling vampire romance that gives off Ready or Not vibes.

Full Review | Sep 19, 2022

Has more in common with bodice-ripping novellas, those fantasy romances between poor girls and aristocrats...

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 15, 2022

Refreshing. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Sep 15, 2022

‘Saturday Night’ May Score a Best Picture Invitation to Oscar Sunday

By Clayton Davis

Clayton Davis

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Live from Telluride, Sony Pictures’ biographical dramedy “ Saturday Night ” has officially entered the Oscar race thanks to its superb ensemble, sizzling script, and expert craftsmanship. The film drew significant attention at the festival, where nearly 300 people were turned away, and the first attendees arrived as early as 2:30 p.m. for the 7:15 p.m. screening. Jason Reitman ’s crowd-pleasing romp is now positioned as a strong contender across several Oscar categories, including best picture.

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However, the awards campaign and PR teams face will face the daunting task of rallying the Actors Branch to select any one of the actors for their respective lineups.

Gabriel LaBelle, who broke out as the young Steven Spielberg in the 2022 drama “The Fabelmans,” is electric as legendary producer and “SNL” creator Lorne Michaels. He’s arguably the film’s lead, as the camera and drama often follow Michaels from floor to floor, as he deals with unhinged cast members and disgruntled craftspeople. But he may have a stronger chance in supporting, as the lead actor category favors older, more established actors.

It’s hard to single out one standout performance. Aside from LaBelle, Tommy Dewey’s deadpan and hilarious portrayal of “SNL” writer and performer Michael O’Donoghue and LaMorne Morris’ charismatic and musical Garrett Morris are noteworthy. Cooper Hoffman’s turn as young NBC executive Dick Ebersol and Matt Wood’s uncanny portrayal of John Belushi is also affecting.

The women of “Saturday Night” aren’t given as much to work with as one might hope. Rachel Sennott’s fiery turn as Michaels’ secret wife, Rosie Shuster, stands out, but her role feels one scene short of serious consideration.

In recent years, crowd-pleasing, audience-friendly titles have found their way onto Oscar’s radar, with films such as “The Holdovers” (2023), “Top Gun: Maverick” (2022), and “Jojo Rabbit” (2019) making a mark. Reitman and co-writer Gil Kenan have crafted a flick that will appeal to more senior AMPAS voters who love reminiscing about the good old days. With crackling dialogue reminiscent of awards darlings “Birdman” (2014) and “The Social Network” (2010), an Oscar battle in original screenplay for “Saturday Night” seems likely. That’s shaping up to be a pitched battle, with other well-received films such as “Anora” and “Emilia Perez” seen as contenders for their screenplays.

Reitman, a two-time directing nominee for “Juno” and “Up in the Air,” could be back in the lineup, depending on how critics and audiences receive the film. It could help his case if “Saturday Night” has strong commercial potential.

Eric Steelberg’s striking cinematography is among his best work, while editors Nathan Orloff and Shane Reid maintain a frenetic, adrenaline-inducing pace. Oscar-winning composer Jon Batiste, who also stars in the film as musical guest Billy Preston, will likely be in the hunt for original score, given that he played live on set while the actors were filming. The sound team, which includes four-time Oscar-nominated sound mixer, Steven Morrow, could also get recognized.

“Saturday Night” packs much into its 103-minute runtime, but it’s immensely satisfying, especially for fans of the show. Even if you’ve never seen an episode or stopped watching several seasons ago, Reitman and his actors provide a window into the lives of a group of artists who left an indelible mark on television and changed comedy.

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‘Wolfs’: George Clooney and Brad Pitt’s New Movie Is Shockingly Bad

“Wolfs” was a Venice Film Festival disappointment. It turns out that star power is not enough when those stars are auto-piloting their way through their new movie.

Barry Levitt

Freelance Writer

Courtesy of Venice Film Festival

VENICE, Italy—District Attorney Margaret (Amy Ryan) is in big trouble. On an impulse, she invited a younger man back to her hotel room—and it was going well…until he collapsed on the floor and died. What was supposed to be a fun night of debauchery and stress relief turned into something awful. She’s terrified and covered in blood. Being discovered in this state would be disastrous for her career. There’s only one person Margaret can call: A Wolf.

They work alone, and only alone. Wolfs are fixers—they do the work that nobody else is willing to do, and they do it discreetly. Wind up with a dead guy in your hotel room? A Wolf is who you call to make sure that guy not only is no longer in your room, but that there’s no trace that that person ever was anywhere near you at all. These are the people who work in the underbelly of society, leaving no trace. They have names, and they may even have families. But you’ll never learn anything about them. “There’s nobody who can do what I do,” George Clooney ’s character tells Margaret.

Except there is someone who does exactly what Clooney’s character does. He’s another Wolf, and he’s played by Brad Pitt . While Margaret called Clooney’s Wolf, the hotel, spying on its guests, called Pitt’s Wolf. And as these people thrive on working entirely alone, they have no idea who one another is. But there’s one thing that they can both agree on: They don’t want to work with anyone else. Ever. But they decide the only chance they have of completing this task is for the pair of them to do something they’d never dream of doing: Working together.

Wolfs , which just premiered at the Venice Film Festival , is an unbearable comedy with jokes all surrounding a single theme: These guys don’t want to work together. Driving along with Clooney and Pitt in Wolfs captures all the thrilling fun of your kids shouting “Are we there yet?” ad infinitum. It repeats the same joke over and over (and over again). And just when you think Wolfs might be interested in moving onto fresh new material, it attempts the same punchline again, in its 400th variation.

George Clooney and Brad Pitt arriving at the Venice Film Festival

Ernesto Ruscio/Getty Images

Wolfs should go down like gangbusters. Clooney and Pitt are two of the biggest movie stars in the world, and writer-director Jon Watts is behind the hugely successful and critically admired MCU Spider-Man trilogy. But Wolfs is an idea without any followthrough—it’s like someone pitched a compelling tagline in a meeting and forgot to fill it out with any actual ideas after the fact. It’s big-budget filmmaking at its most vacant. Clooney and Pitt are gifted actors, and they’ve had great success working together in movies like Burn After Reading and the Oceans trilogy. But they’re both delivering auto-piloted performances here, moving their mouths and churning out exhausting dialogue because they’re being paid a lot of money to do so (more than $35 million apiece according to The New York Times ).

They’re both lifeless and their characters lack any interiority. The joke is that they’re annoyed with each other and are convinced that they work completely differently, when the reality is that they’re extremely similar. This renders both their characters identical—if they swapped all their dialogue, it would make no difference whatsoever. Austin Abrams is the only major player to walk away unscathed from Wolfs , delivering a charming and genuinely funny performance as a man who unexpectedly finds himself assisting the fixers.

I can only assume Wolfs made it into the Venice lineup because the star power was enough to get it here. But Wolfs provides ample evidence that celebrity wattage is not nearly enough, especially when neither star seems particularly invested in being on screen. This is a movie in desperate need of another dimension. Its set pieces are uninspired and lifeless, and the script grinds to a halt every time you think things are about to gain momentum. If you’re still curious about Wolfs , just watch the trailer —it has every “highlight” of the movie in a few digestible minutes.

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‘wolfs’ review: brad pitt and george clooney reunite for a cunning caper that never takes itself too seriously — sometimes to a fault.

Jon Watts ('Spider-Man: Homecoming') wrote and directed this New York-set action comedy, which will roll out on Apple TV+ after premiering in Venice.

By Jordan Mintzer

Jordan Mintzer

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Can movie stars stay cool forever?

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Either way it’s unfortunate, because Wolfs is a work that deserves big-screen attention — instead of being viewed in bed on a MacBook that’s resting on top of your crotch. Written and directed by Jon Watts , who, after a lengthy stint in the Marvel Universe, returns to the caper mode of his 2015 breakthrough Cop Car , the movie has twists galore and showcases a slick, deadpan style you hardly see in Hollywood anymore. Both fun and thin at the same time, it’s not about much in the end except the idea of reuniting Pitt and Clooney to see if they still have their magic, which they mostly do.

Both play “cleaners” or “fixers” — think Jean Reno in La Femme Nikita or Harvey Keitel, the first and most famous Wolf, in Pulp Fiction — who get hired for a job that winds up stretching out for one long, snowy and action-packed New York night. That job entails helping a district attorney ( Amy Ryan ) get rid of a dead body in her luxury hotel room, but it quickly spirals into much more. The body, in fact, is not dead at all, and belongs to a gabby, nervous wreck of a kid (Austin Abrams), who happens to be carrying four kilos of heroine in his book bag.

Watts teases out the tension and humor between them in every scene, getting plenty of mileage off their slightest gestures or facial expressions, especially during a few sequences where there’s hardly any dialogue at all. Like in Cop Car , or his excellent TV series, The Old Man , the director has a knack for staging visual comedy and action with only a few shots and cuts — the opposite of what most overshot action movies do.

At its best moments, Wolfs takes that style to extreme lengths, in what’s basically a two-hander set on lots of empty Manhattan streets, or inside Clooney’s comfy BMW. A few other characters are brought in, including the aforementioned “kid,” a doctor (Poorna Jagannathan) working out of a restaurant in Chinatown, and an Albanian mob boss (Zlatko Burić) whose daughter’s wedding the two crash in one over-the-top scene.

But like Pitt and Clooney, none of these characters feels like real people. They’re occupants of a movie world closer to the ’90s-era meta-fictions of Tarantino than anything real or contemporary. Which means that whether they live or die, shoot one another or hug it up, finish as besties or arch enemies, doesn’t seem to matter all that much.

As for the question at the top of this review, at one point the kid, who’s as nerdy a New Yorker as they come, tells Pitt and Clooney how cool they are. And it’s true they do some very cool things, like when Clooney bags a body in the hotel room in one quick swoop, brings it casually downstairs on a luggage rack and kicks it into the trunk of his Beemer. Even when, later on, he and Pitt have to simultaneously take out their old man reading glasses, they seem cool as cucumbers.

But does everyone still think that? If you were to ask a bunch of random teenagers or people in their 20s today, it’s possible they don’t even know who the actors are or what films they’ve done. And it’s also quite possible they don’t watch many films at all anymore, if they ever did.

And so if Wolfs is about anything, perhaps it’s about testing whether Hollywood stars exert the same power and fascination they did when movies seemed to matter much more to the general public. The results of that test are yet to be known, and Wolfs leaves us with a final image of Pitt and Clooney suspended together in action, as if to say: If they no longer have us, at least they have each other.

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The Brutalist Is Half Of A Great Movie

If you told me that Brady Corbet possessed the ability to walk on water, repel bullets, or phase through walls, I’d believe it. To make a movie like The Brutalist requires such a superhuman level of self-confidence that it might as well be accompanied by other preternatural powers. The Brutalist spans 33 years on screen and over three and a half hours of runtime, including a 15-minute intermission at its midpoint. It’s the first film in decades to be fully shot in VistaVision, and at the Venice Film Festival , where it had its premiere, it was projected on 70mm. It’s a sweeping work about a Hungarian Jewish immigrant and diasporic trauma in the wake of World War II from a filmmaker who’s not himself Jewish, but who hurls himself into details of his main character’s journey from a ravaged Europe to a booming Pennsylvania with such specificity that you’ll find yourself googling whether this is another Tár situation, or whether László Tóth was a real person (he wasn’t). It’s impossible not to be impressed by the sheer audacity of The Brutalist ’s existence, even if the finished product doesn’t end up matching its ambitions. Set aside all its film geek specs, and it still feels willed into existence to be the kind of movie that isn’t made anymore, a grand American saga that’s openly intent on telling a big story with big ideas. And at its center is Adrien Brody, doing better work than he’s done in years or possibly ever as László, who in 1947 washes up in Philadelphia at the doorstep of a cousin, Attila (Alessandro Nivola), sure he’s lost everything.

Brody won an Oscar for The Pianist , the movie that served as his breakthrough, and despite working steadily since (and becoming a regular in Wes Anderson’s ensembles), never reached that level of work again. But he’s remarkable in The Brutalist , in a way that makes you feel like you’re seeing him afresh, with his open parenthesis of a body and that handsome, hangdog face that’s always ruefully giving away a little more than his characters want. We only gradually learn what a big deal László was in Budapest before the war, but Brody offers glimpses of the respected architect the man used to be in his blunt assessment of the furniture Attila sells in his store, in the care he takes when crafting his own designs, and in his indifference to anyone who doesn’t appreciate the value of his work. László has lost the love of his life, Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) — not to death, as he initially thought, but to the snarls of bureaucracy and legal whims that keep his wife stuck at the Austrian border with his niece Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy), who’s so traumatized by what she went through that she’s stopped speaking. Without her, he’s half a ghost, living in storage closets and shoveling coal and only sparking to life when his friend, Gordon (Isaach De Bankolé), takes him to a jazz club, or when he and Attila get a commission to rework the library of a wealthy industrialist named Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), a job that will alter the course of László’s life for years to come.

The Brutalist is a movie about desperation and anguish, though its willingness to keep that element below the surface of all of its dramas is gratifying. László and Attila and Erzsébet don’t discuss what they went through, though it informs everything about their sometimes erratic, electrified behavior — like the way Attila has shed all traces of his Jewishness, or how Erzsébet, when she eventually reunites with her husband, requests sex from him in a way that suggests they should be able to use it as a shortcut to sealing up their psychic wounds. László himself is a man in pieces who can barely pretend to hold himself together, and he teeters on the edge of falling apart so often in the film’s first half that it feels like a miracle when he slips into the blustering Harrison’s good graces, and gets chosen to design a community center on a hill in Doylestown. Harrison is a self-made man who collects first editions and madeira like he can rack up a high score in being cultured — Pierce is menacing and funny in the role, especially when Harrison informs László, more than once, that he finds their conversations “intellectually stimulating.” Having Harrison as a patron is like holding a tiger by the tail, but managing him and his slimy little shit of a son Harry (Joe Alwyn) offers László a chance to not just return to architecture, but to be the author of a wildly ambitious project that, if he can fend off all other forces, will represent a vision that is purely his.

It fits that The Brutalist is about architectural auteurism. Corbet, who writes all of his scripts with his wife, fellow filmmaker Mona Fastvold, is a former actor who got his start as a teenager on features like Thirteen and Mysterious Skin before moving into directing, and each of his now three features is an individual campaign in establishing his seriousness (and self-seriousness) as a filmmaker and laying out his as a major creative voice. He has a particular interest in placing his characters against a backdrop of tumultuous historical moments. His directorial debut, 2015’s The Childhood of a Leader , depicted the coming-of-age of a future dictator in post-World War I France, while his caustic Natalie Portman-lead pop star drama Vox Lux spanned a Columbine-like school shooting and September 11. This desire to ground his films in the weight of momentous events has previously struck me as hopelessly thirsty, in the same way that his critiques of American culture have felt a little glib. The Brutalist is the first feature of his that’s actually lead by his characters rather than pinning those characters onto major milestones like display butterflies, and even then, it loses its focus by the end, rushing toward a conclusion that’s presented as a hasty reveal rather than something you really want the movie to dwell on. Still, there’s half a great movie here, and in the high ceilings of László’s community center, the swell of the score, and those wide shots of columns going up on a green hillside, there’s plenty of room to grow.

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Sasquatch Sunset’ on Paramount+, a Deeply Odd Secret-Life-of-the-Bigfoot Comedy-Drama

Where to stream:.

• Sasquatch Sunset
• Jesse Eisenberg

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There isn’t a single word of English spoken in Sasquatch Sunset ( now streaming on Paramount+ ), or any other recognizable language, for that matter. Nope, it’s just ooh-ooh-ooh-AH-AH-AH – with no subtitles – as Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough lead a cast unrecognizable beneath furry ape suits, grunting, hooting and defecating their way through a year in the life of a family of bigfeet (bigfoots?). Pretty much every conceivable bodily excretion gets a star turn in this incredibly weird fantasti-comedy from filmmakers David Zellner and Nathan Zellner ( Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter ), but does that mean it’s a crappy movie? Let’s find out.

SASQUATCH SUNSET : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: A forest idyll. Lush, beautiful, green. And through it walks a family of sasquatches, like, dum-de-dum-de-dum . There’s an elder alpha male (Nathan Zellner), another male (Eisenberg) we’ll call the beta, a female (Keough) and what appears to be an adolescent or pre-adolescent male (Christophe Zajac-Denec). It’ll take a minute to sort them and differentiate one ugly wrinkled face from another. They sit down and groom each other, picking nits from fur. One accidentally sneezes on another, much to its chagrin. SPRING, booms a title card. And spring must be mating season, because the alpha and the female are going at it. The other two stand and watch. An elk grazing on a nearby fern looks over its shoulder like, do you have to do that NOW? But hey, this is nature’s way. And then it kind of isn’t, as the commingling sasquatches finish and amble over to a bushy patch, pluck a few ferns and towel off their nethers. 

We observe as this “family” of missing links roams the woods. They build a shelter out of branches and ferns. They each grab a limb and thump out a rhythm on trees, in musical coordination – it seems to be an attempt to communicate with other sasquatches, but they get no reply. Their existence is a lonely one, although they coexist peacefully with porcupines, badgers and the like. The beta tries to count stars but seems to struggle, like he’s bumping his head on the ceiling of sasquatch intelligence. The alpha picks his nose and licks his finger. They sleep in a pile. They munch on mushrooms and ferns, and drink at the stream. They taste and smell things in examination. There’s a bit where one picks up a turtle and licks it and it latches onto its tongue and it’s a big to-do; when it finally lets go, they pass the turtle around and hold it up to their ears like they’re playing a game of telephone. Odd. So so odd.

Strange, how these humanish creatures experience everything in the world around them with curiosity and a seeming unfamiliarity – it’s almost as if they know they’re in a movie and want to show the audience what they do and how they do it in an entertaining and comic manner. There is a plot, and it begins with the alpha hogging the fruit of a berry bush to himself, and apparently getting high as balls. Then he encounters a puma in an f-around-and-find-out scene. Meanwhile, the child has an imaginary friend he makes out of his hand, using the thumb to “talk” in sasquatchian grunts. The female is pregnant. The beta is a more playful sort. We witness rejected sexual overtures, various rituals that seem to imply intelligence, fish hunting, the rubbing of a sasquatch crotch with sasquatch fingers that are then smelled by sasquatch noses. Eventually, just as we’re getting weary of ape-y antics, they come across what we’ve expected them to come across all along: evidence of humans.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Quest for Fire featured early cavefolk grunting (also without subtitles) their way through a survival story. Can’t watch actors work in furry primate garb without thinking about the OG Planet of the Apes . I’d wager the opening sequence of 2001: A Space Odyssey was a reference — and god help me those ape outfits looked so much like Alf .

Performance Worth Watching: Is it possible to FOIA Eisenberg and Keough’s financial papers to determine if that is, indeed, them under all those prosthetics?

Memorable Dialogue: This exchange:

Beta: “Uh uh uh.”  Female: “Oh uh uh oh.”

Sex and Skin: This is rated R for graphic crude and sexual humor and violent images – all involving sasquatches.

Our Take: Goofy movie. Quirky, experimental, ambitious. And novel? Yes, for sure. That’s Sasquatch Sunset ’s biggest challenge – superseding its novelty. It aims to bridge the gap between poignancy and scatology, but it lacks the material to cover the expanse. I kept leaning toward the screen in an attempt to interpret what I was seeing, and landed roughly here: This seems like a lonesome group, pounding its rhythm and getting no response, traversing territory in search of others like them, existing within our reality’s sasquatch myth, that we so rarely see them because there just aren’t very many of them. A recurring sort-of-joke in which the beta ’squatch struggles to “count” things (and might be too stupid to do so, ha ha?) takes on legit meaning as we watch how the drama plays out, forcing us to consider what “sunset” implies. 

And then, during one of the funniest and most revelatory sequences in the film – the group stumbling over evidence of humanity, and I’ll leave it at that – their response is to howl, and excrete with wanton abandon, out of fear and, apparently, existential concern. I get it, there’s an added layer to the grossout comedy, a layer of self-reflection prompting us to wonder why the human race finds the mere existence of urine and feces to be funny. We aren’t that different from these furry beasts with their junk hanging out in the open, y’know.  And yet it may test your suspension of disbelief, frequently.

Whether you’re compelled to endure the silliness and grotesquery here all the way to the end is a different matter. The Zellners direct with a degree of conviction that lures us in, engrossing us in the environment and the actions of the sasquatches, and it’s effective enough that I had to remind myself that there’s no “realism” here, that there’s absolutely no basis for accuracy of sasquatch behavior. (It’s not a documentary, although it takes on some of the observational mannerisms of the form.) Sometimes they’re gross beasts, sometimes they’re Just Like Us Exclamation Point! The gimmick wears thin and the fixation on doodoo and such will be divisive – it’s a bit much – but I’ll be damned if I wasn’t at least modestly invested in the well-being of these beings, at least in principle. 

Our Call: I’m on the fence here, precariously. Curiosity drove my interest in Sasquatch Sunset , but that didn’t necessarily sustain it, even for its brief 88 minutes. But you hardly ever see movies like this get made, and you have to admire its spirit and gumption. So I say STREAM IT, just to see where the Zellners take you.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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‘Wolfs’ Review: George Clooney and Brad Pitt. That’s It. That’s the Movie.

Venice Film Festival: The “Ocean’s Eleven” stars reunite for a caper with more star power than real power

Hey, remember the scenes in Steven Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s Eleven” where George Clooney and Brad Pitt stood next to each other and looked cool and said cool things? The new film “Wolfs” assumes you do, and that you want to see those moments all over again, and again, and again, because that’s basically the whole movie.

And the thing is, “Wolfs” is right. We do want to see that. The ancient art of simply taking two people with chemistry and letting them do stuff, whatever that stuff is, is under-appreciated and a little lost. We go to see superhero movies for the superheroes, not the stars who play them, and you can tell because when those actors star in other movies those movies often struggle to find an audience. But Jon Watts’ film gambles on our simple desire to hang out with two cool fools who really know where their towels are. It’s content to let Clooney be Clooney and let Pitt be Pitt, and while the movie surrounding them doesn’t make a lasting impression, it sure is fun to watch while you’re in the thick of it.

“Wolfs,” which premiered on Sunday at the Venice Film Festival, stars George Clooney as a fixer. He’s the kind of guy rich people call to make a body disappear in the middle of the night. He has no name but since George Clooney is at his George Clooney-ist, for the rest of this review we’ll call him “George Clooney.” Brad Pitt is also a nameless fixer and at his Brad Pitt-iest, so we’ll call him “Brad Pitt” for the same reasons.

George Clooney is summoned to a hotel room and discovers a district attorney, Margaret (Amy Ryan), panicking next to a dead body. So he gets to work, calming her nerves and covering her tracks, and then Brad Pitt shows up. Margaret called George Clooney but the owner of the hotel called Brad Pitt, so whether they like it or not — and they don’t — these two loners will have to work together to make this problem go away.

It’s a crime comedy so everything goes wrong quickly. They don’t just have to get rid of a corpse, they also have to figure out who owns the staggering amount of the narcotics this mystery man had in his backpack. And just when they’re trying to solve that little conundrum, in a series of scenes let’s call “Bickerfest 2024,” another wrench gets thrown into the works, but we’ll save that for a surprise, even though the trailers probably already ruined it. (I just checked. They did. Thanks trailers!)

Jon Watts does a fantastic job of letting this situation find its own silliness, opening with a matter-of-fact, all-business slickness that evokes welcome memories of “Michael Clayton,” before it gradually opens up into a droll buddy movie. Larkin Seiple, who photographed “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and Jon Watts’ early, lean and mean indie thriller “Cop Car,” sustains the film’s early dramatic approach for the whole runtime. No matter what silliness takes place on camera, it looks like it’s taking place in a world with no tolerance for silliness.. 

The cinematography deserves its own paragraph. Damn this is a good-looking movie. Seiple doesn’t just paint with light, he lacquers with it. The whole film looks shiny and deep, with lights popping out of urban murk, gloss on city grime. Somewhere around the corner the protagonists of a Michael Mann movie are probably having a very different night, but in the corner we can see, George Clooney and Brad Pitt are being reduced to petty embarrassments.

One wacky situation after another takes place and George Clooney and Brad Pitt gradually form an begrudging bond. In their line of work they’re supposed to be loners, devoid of connection. Lone “wolfs,” if you will. So if you were staring at that title and questioning the grammatical accuracy, don’t worry, the film did it on purpose.

The problem with “Wolfs” is that there is no problem. Everything is so tight and efficient in its construction, and its two heroes are so capable — even when they’re convinced the other one is a hack — that the chaos never threatens to overwhelm them. This keeps comedy mild and the tension low. Writer/director Jon Watts, returning to original material after three “Spider-Man” movies in a row, seems liberated by the chance to stretch his legs. But the aloof quippiness of the Marvel Cinematic Universe seems to have followed him home from work. 

So “Wolfs” is always whimsical but after the first few minutes, it’s no longer suspenseful or fascinating. The dangers are brushed aside with cutting remarks, and although the film eventually threatens to send George Clooney and Brad Pitt down a darker path that reminds us that, before the events of “Wolfs,” these were both morally compromised people, the cast and characters are trying so hard to be likable that it never feels like a serious likelihood. It would be very un-George Clooney and un-Brad Pitt of them.

But let’s not let little gripes get in the way of the bigger picture. “Wolfs” is a very enjoyable film, even if its joy stems from minor frivolity. It’s a movie about cool people looking and acting cool, for the enjoyment of the (probably uncool) people in the audience. They call it “star power” because it dazzles. Then again, the problem is that there’s no real problem, and that has two meanings. It’s all well and good to make a sleek and handsome cinematic star vehicle just to make everyone happy. But without any real edge or danger, that happiness doesn’t last very long. “Wolfs” shines bright, fades fast, and leaves a good-looking after-image on the screen.

Apple Original Films will release “Wolfs” in select theaters on Sept. 20 and on Apple TV+ on Sept. 27.

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