Disastrous dinner party

'The Invitation’ is a tense, twist-laden thriller

Nothing is better for a film than good word of mouth. An unsolicited recommendation from a trusted friend with good taste who heard about a thing from yet another friend with good taste… That’s how you discover movies that might otherwise fly under the collective radar—and how I came to accept “The Invitation.”

We meet Will and Kira (Logan Marshall-Green and Emayatzy Corinealdi) as they drive into the hills of outer Los Angeles to attend a dinner party with some of Will’s old friends. They’re newly enamored, a dynamic quickly tested when they hit a coyote and Will decides to put it out of its misery with a tire iron.

The dinner party is hosted by Will’s ex-wife, Eden (Tammy Blanchard) at the house where they used to live with their now-deceased son, and where she now nests with her new husband, David (Michael Huisman). Their guests are longtime acquaintances, with the exception of Sadie (Lindsay Burge), the weird hippie chick Eden and David met while on  a vacation in Mexico, and Pruitt (John Carroll Lynch)—a hulking, stoic man whose calm façade belies a vague malevolence.

All seems convivial enough amongst the guests, a group straight from central casting, though Will is still struggling with the memories of his former life in the house with Eden and their son. Increasingly on edge, Will begins to notice that something isn’t quite right with Eden and David’s two new guests, a feeling that’s exacerbated when David shows them a strange, disturbing video made by a grief counseling group called The Invitation—which features their leader Dr. Joseph (Toby Huss) as he gives comfort to a terminally ill patient in her final moments.     

Will’s paranoia mounts as things start to seem ever more off—the bizarre Sadie, the disappearance of a guest, Eden’s mysterious bottle of pills—though his friends assure him that everything is just fine.

Collaborating with longtime writing partners Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi, director Karyn Kusama crafts an all-time great entry into the genre of disastrous dinner party films, full of red herrings and narrative left turns that expertly ratchet the tension to gut-wrenching levels, followed by twists that gamely deflate that tension just when you think you know what’s going to happen next.

The self-contained setting and story, along with the ensemble cast, lend “The Invitation” the feel of a stage play—the film takes place almost entirely in a ‘70s-style Hollywood Hills edifice that oddly recalls “The Brady Bunch.” Accordingly, the films rests on the strength of the performances and the writing, both of which are resolutely up to the task of supporting the slow-burn tension Kusama aims for and achieves.

Kusama is the poster child for how hard it can be for a female director to succeed in Hollywood. She got her start with the 2000 Sundance Film Festival darling “Girlfight,” which won both the Grand Jury Prize and Best Director and opened the door to the big leagues. But her big budget debut, “Æon Flux,” was deemed too arty and feminine by the studio, and was ultimately taken away from her and re-edited into an incoherent mess. Her next project, the Megan Fox vehicle “Jennifer’s Body,” was the rare horror film made for teenage girls, but was marketed to teenage boys and bombed at the box office.

Produced by Gamechanger Films, which finances movies directed by women, “The Invitation” showcases the filmmaker at the top of her game, finally unfettered by the studio meddling that has thus far stalled her career. It’s exciting to see such a strong female director finally allowed to flourish on her own terms, especially when the end result is one of the best films of the year.

“The Invitation” is available On Demand and through various streaming outlets. 

For more from Joe, read his list of classic stoner films.