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Olivia Wilde had an emotional night at the Sundance Film Festival.
Wilde, 41, who directed and stars in The Invite, premiered the couple comedy at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival on Saturday, January 24th. The film premiered to rave reviews, with audiences giving it a standing ovation and seeing Wilde burn off years of fatigue on stage.
“It was a dream to premiere here in front of you all,” said director Wilde, who was on the red carpet and on stage for a post-screening Q&A with co-stars Seth Rogen and Edward Norton.
“The standing ovation was very well-deserved,” festival director Kim Yutani told Wilde during the post-screening Q&A stage.
The Invite, co-written by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack, follows the endangered marriage of two couples at a dinner party: Wilde and Rogen, who play host, and Penelope Cruz and Norton, who visit. According to Sundance’s official synopsis, this “intense, energetic chamber drama” chronicles “the unearthing of years of frustration, insecurity, codependency, thwarted aspirations, and sexual FOMO.”
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Critics have widely praised Wilde’s new film, saying it depicts “a harrowing hangout where a couple downstairs invites a free-spirited couple upstairs for drinks.” Indiewire wrote that Wilde “knows exactly what he’s doing, how to balance between big laughs and heartbreak, how to use his cast effectively, and how to surprise audiences at almost every turn.” “Please accept this invitation. Please hurry.”
Variety called “The Invite” “fantastically entertaining” and wrote “I watch it in a state of rapt immersion and joy.”
The Hollywood Reporter also praised the former Booksmart director. The paper wrote, “After Wilde unfairly bashed ‘Don’t Worry Darling,’ her new film should silence doubters.” “At this point, it’s hard to deny that she’s the real deal as a director.”
“I heard a wise man say this: You’re never more vulnerable than when you’re laughing,” Wilde said during a Q&A. “The great thing about this script was that we were able to take people on that journey, make them laugh, relax, and then give them the gut punch of divorce.”
Provided by Sundance Institute
“I can’t overstate the grace and wisdom with which Olivia performed that performance and guided us,” said Norton, 56. “She was operating on so many dimensions at the same time, and there was never any sense of pressure from that juggling act…It was like, ‘Where’s the stress? Where’s the difficulty?'”
Rogen, 43, agreed. “When I first signed on for the movie,[Wilde]wasn’t going to be in the movie. Edward and I were texting each other saying, ‘How do we convince her to be in the movie?'” She kept sending us names of other people. I was like, “Why are you doing this?” What kind of practice are we doing here? There is clearly someone who should do this. ”
“And when she decided to cast herself in this movie, even though it seemed like she didn’t want to do it, it really took off,” the Studio Emmy winner added.
“What was special about this process was that I had the opportunity to workshop with Will and Rashida,” Wilde recalled, noting that The Invite was also shot chronologically. “During rehearsals, the six of us sat on the soundstage and just dug into it.”
The director added that some of the film’s funniest moments are “written by the cast.”
“I was shocked at how many of the songs we improvised got accepted,” Rogen said with a laugh.
Wilde also co-stars with Cooper Hoffman in this year’s other Sundance premiere, director Gregg Araki’s I Want Your Sex. “The Invite” will be the actress-director’s first full-length premiere at the festival.
The 2026 Sundance Film Festival will be held from January 22nd to February 1st in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah. This is the last iteration of the fest to be held there prior to its move to Boulder, Colorado in 2027, and the first time it has been held since the death of founder Robert Redford.
