Olivia Wilde returns to directing with a smart, nuanced, and brilliantly uncomfortable comedy of marital manners.
Seeking a release from constant stand-offs with her listless husband Joe (Seth Rogen), Angela (Wilde) invites the (audibly) much happier couple upstairs to a dinner party. She is bent on making it work; he won’t even try to help; they’re just happy to be there – and before long, various barriers start collapsing. Remaking Spanish hit The People Upstairs with screenwriters Will McCormack and Rashida Jones, Wilde builds on Booksmart with a grown-up, small-scale study of relationships, full of subtle visual and dramatic detail yet brilliantly farcical.
Mostly confining the four stars to a San Francisco apartment, they raise each other beautifully: Wilde’s manic energy dovetails with Rogen’s quiet frustration, crashing around a smooth but slippery Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton
