‘The Invite’ Is a Hilarious Social Nightmare, With Olivia Wilde!

On today’s show, Sean and Amanda invite their enigmatic upstairs neighbor Chris Ryan for an episode that spirals into unexpected places, because they’re discussing Olivia Wilde’s ‘The Invite.’ They praise Wilde for her incredible sense of direction, celebrate the connective tissue between the wonderful writing and the distinct performances, and explore whether they read the ending as optimistic or pessimistic. Then, they share their personal top five “nightmare couple movies” of all time. Finally, Sean is joined by Wilde to dive deep into her new film. She explains why she feels we're very isolated in our culture now, how you know whether you’re giving the right performance in a movie you’re directing, and why this film had no chance being made within the studio system. (0:00) Intro (1:13) ‘The Invite’ (20:40) Spoiler alert (45:37) The top five nightmare couple movies (55:28) Olivia Wilde joins the show! Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Chris Ryan Producer: Jack Sanders Production Support: Lucas Cavanagh It’s on Prime. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:16Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Finacy. I'm Amanda Davenport. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about The Invite. Today on the show, you're invited into a deep dive into a very funny, very middle-aged Dark Knight of the Soul. The Invite is a sharp-tongued and even more sharply made four-hander dramedy starring Seth Rogen, Olivia Wilde, Edward Norton, and Penelope Cruz. It's an old-fashioned dinner party stress test in one of the more entertaining movies of the year. I'm very happy that Olivia Wilde, who is not just the star, but the director of the movie, is on the show. We talked about how she made it, why she made it, why she decided to star in it, and a lot of other things. CR is also here to deep dive into the movie with us. We'll talk about it right after this.

• 1:53Sean Fennessey?

  This episode of The Big Picture is presented by Amazon Prime. One of the best things about streaming is that you never just pick a title, you pick a feeling. And Prime makes that easy with great entertainment and fast shipping that brings the moment to life. Prime helps you experience the feeling you're craving, shows you can't wait for, and deliveries you don't wait for, one click away. From streaming to fast shipping, it's on Prime.

• 2:13Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, pure movie focus episode today.

• 2:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:16Sean Fennessey?

  We're only just talking about the movie itself, which we don't do as often.

• 2:20Speaker 03

  And thank you for inviting me to do so.

• 2:23Sean Fennessey?

  You're welcome, and thank you for accepting that invitation. I am.

• 2:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, boy.

• 2:27Sean Fennessey?

  We usually only do this kind of thing for big movies, for big tent pole releases, your dunes, your disclosure days.

• 2:36Speaker 03

  Your fjords.

• 2:37Sean Fennessey?

  Your fjords. Yeah, well, hopefully.

• 2:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I think it will be one, and then just a lot of thought about Scandinavia.

• 2:44Sean Fennessey?

  Will you be on the fjord up?

• 2:45Amanda Dobbins?

  You've been to Norway.

• 2:46Speaker 03

  I have.

• 2:46Amanda Dobbins?

  He's the only you haven't been to Norway, right?

• 2:48Sean Fennessey?

  I haven't.

• 2:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, okay.

• 2:49Sean Fennessey?

  I'd like to go. Maybe we should do it from there.

• 2:51Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 2:51Sean Fennessey?

  Should we do the episode from there?

• 2:52Amanda Dobbins?

  It did look very beautiful. I had some other notes.

• 2:54Sean Fennessey?

  It did. Yeah, complicated culture. The invite, the reason that I thought it would be good to do this as a standalone conversation is I would say it's a very us-coded movie.

• 3:05Amanda Dobbins?

  It's a very big pick movie.

• 3:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 3:07Amanda Dobbins?

  And some of that is because it's about old married people in a transitional and possibly unhappy phase of life. And there's also a lot of talking, and there's Edward Norton. So, and Penelope Cruz and Seth Rogen and Olivia Wilde. It checks all of our boxes in terms of interests and also does the thing where, you know, just a lot of conversation starters. If you want to get into that.

• 3:34Sean Fennessey?

  I want you to start them today. That's why we're doing it. And, you know, the three of us, we find ourselves at a somewhat similar stage in our lives as the four characters in the movie. Whether or not we're confronting the same issues will be analyzed here. Just to put a little bit of context around the film, it is directed by Olivia Wilde, written by Rashida Jones and Will McCormick. It's based on a 2021 Spanish film. This is Olivia Wilde's third feature film. Her last was four years ago, the controversial Don't Worry Darling. It is only four people in the movie.

• 4:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:06Sean Fennessey?

  I guess with the exception of the class that appears that Seth Rogen is teaching in the very first or second sequence of the movie. And here's the log line, Joe and Angela's marriage is on thin ice. When they invite their enigmatic upstairs neighbors for a dinner party, the night spirals into unexpected places. Kristen's here, our guest.

• 4:25Speaker 03

  Oh, thanks.

• 4:25Sean Fennessey?

  Here on the show. What did you think of the invite?

• 4:27Speaker 03

  I thought it was a wonderfully made movie. I found it to be absolutely delightful comedy. And I was thinking about it in relationship to Weapons. Because I just had this conversation with Andy about Weapons, about whether or not he felt like, because he liked Weapons a lot, whether or not he felt like he needed some sort of ironic distance to appreciate horror. And what I really loved about The Invite is that often when you have couples being vicious to one another in comic films, there needs to be something, like whether it's slapstick, physical comedy, or almost like the threat of some kind of like violence happening, or, and we'll get into this, some sort of elaborate plot twist that kind of changes the stakes of the film. Comedies are afraid to be really mean.

• 5:12Speaker 03

  And I really liked the fact that this movie was unrepentant. And the worst person in the world is the person who loves you the most. The person who knows you the best can hurt you the most. To watch these two people tear each other apart over the course of two hours, but never lose sight of the fact that there's a group of people in an audience watching them and looking to be entertained. I thought Wilde really, really, she nailed the balance beam here.

• 5:41Sean Fennessey?

  What'd you think?

• 5:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, the horror comparisons are apt. I loved this movie and was far more uncomfortable during it than I was during Obsession, Backrooms, any sort of like the gory stuff that I think that I'm uncomfortable or scared of. That does, again, I'm recommending this, I loved it. But in terms of just having my hands in front of my face, I did that more during this movie than I have in any other movie this year. Positive, complimentary. I thought it was incredibly funny. I just also, answers-

• 6:20Amanda Dobbins?

  It's, it didn't quite answer a lot of questions that I have about certain things that going on in the world, but I have found myself having a lot of these conversations, not just about like, what's going on with group sex parties and how they work, even though that is in the text. And I really did feel like it was copy and pasted from conversations that I had.

• 6:37Sean Fennessey?

  Totally.

• 6:38Amanda Dobbins?

  About Google calendars and such, but at, you know, we're at a phase of life where most of the people we know have been married for a while. And I think it's going, you know, not well to very well, depending on who you talk to and how people are reckoning with that and where they put the blame for it is, is interesting to talk to in our own life and also interesting to see in this movie because I think each character would say something different. And I think everybody watching it would also see some, say something different, which I thought was a real accomplishment that it can draw a lot of different reactions out of an audience.

• 7:14Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I'm curious to see what happens when it goes out into the world. Something I said to Olivia when we talked, and this echoes a little bit of what you're saying, Chris, is it reminded me, even though I am in the, I think at the perfect age to watch this movie, given how long I've been married, given the relationships that you're describing, given my sense of where those characters are in their lives and how some of that stuff might echo some experiences I've had. It also gave me the exact same feeling when I was a younger person, when I saw Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, or specifically Husbands and Wives, the Woody Allen movie, which is a very nasty movie, a very embittered movie about relationships that really should have ended 10 years sooner. And I love that she made a movie that, you know, if it doesn't quite get to that level of vitriol, there's

• 7:57Sean Fennessey?

  a real, there's a dark core in The Invite. And you can, we can talk about whether or not we see this as an optimistic or a less hopeful film. But there are a lot of moments where you see two people who really are sick of each other and are sick of each other's shit. And then the way that the new characters, the neighbors, present opportunity for them, but also reveal to them the ways in which they're not working, or they don't make sense to each other. And, you know, it is, it is very. Very Gen X, old millennial. The particular concerns, I think the expectations that a lot of these characters had in their young lives and what they bring and the sort of regrets and frustrations that they have, which is not really revealed until later parts of the movie.

• 8:39Sean Fennessey?

  And then, as you said, it's also like, it's also a straight up sex farce, which is another kind of movie that we don't get that frequently anymore. And the movie is blunt, direct, its jokes are like on the nose. They're not like bobbing and weaving around, you know, pegging comes up multiple times. Like this is a very straightforward sex movie. And it's happening at a time where, at least in our lives, I certainly hear about things now where I'm like, oh, wow.

• 9:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, yeah.

• 9:06Sean Fennessey?

  They're into that.

• 9:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. We've all, we're not allowed to say names, but you know, everybody on Reddit, there's at least one that we can, you know about this, we've talked about it. So there's, there's a more prominent one.

• 9:19Sean Fennessey?

  We can.

• 9:19Amanda Dobbins?

  We can.

• 9:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I mean, I think that was the sort of like the founding reason for See Our Heads.

• 9:26Sean Fennessey?

  A lot of pegging going on over there.

• 9:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Listen.

• 9:30Amanda Dobbins?

  We support you, you know, as long as everything is respectful and consensual, you guys do what you need to do, okay? But yeah, like as people get to a certain age, you just start hearing about other arrangements or other situations, or like friends of friends and, and, you know, there's natural curiosity. And some of it is, I guess, like sexual, but most of it is just kind of logistical and sociological and what, you know, what are other people doing? Like what's going on?

• 10:02Sean Fennessey?

  That's right. I think that's, that is the thing that I think the movie is also very smart about, which is it's in part, I think it's a very good movie about as you get older, you just don't really feel seen anymore. You don't feel seen by your partner, you don't feel seen by your friends, you don't feel seen by the world, right? You're just like, I'm kind of like slowly aging and diminishing into the lowest form of myself. Olivia Wilde's character, that's very much something that she is feeling at this stage of her life. And one way out of that is to kind of make a change in your life. And maybe it's through your sex life changing. And when somebody is doing something else in the world, it feels Is very foreign.

• 10:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 10:37Sean Fennessey?

  And maybe a little scary or weird, but it can also be exciting to you that you can like transform out of that shrinking quality.

• 10:44Speaker 03

  I think it's really interesting, you know, I'm, I'm sitting with two children of divorce and I'm conversant in difficult marriages. Uh, I think it's really interesting that you bring up these older films, because one of the things I loved about The Invite was that it told a very familiar story with some familiar refrains or melodic ideas, but where maybe some of the older films you're referring to are a lot about like repression or people feeling trapped in a society that won't let them do this or won't let them do that. This movie is about people who really, um, at least emotionally and intellectually have the whole world at their fingertips. They're over therapies, perhaps they indulge in recreational drug use. They can explore every sexual fantasy that they want, but they're still

• 11:29Speaker 03

  not happy, you know, and they can, they can buy things or they can have like a man cave and all the things that like, maybe we don't remember our parents having access to those things, but they are unhappy in the same way, just in different, in a different accent. You know what I mean?

• 11:46Sean Fennessey?

  I think that's a really astute.

• 11:47Speaker 03

  And I, I think that's why this is kind of a timeless, if somewhat undefinable genre of multiple couples tearing each other apart is.

• 11:57Amanda Dobbins?

  But on the generation specific terms.

• 12:00Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 12:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, yeah. And to your point, both like emotionally and therapeutically or over therapeutically, but you know, the details and the specific references and the, the rugs of it all is, is so attuned to our, and, and so knowing of our particular walk of life and time of life in a way that is, is funny and, and cruel.

• 12:22Speaker 03

  Can I just say something I really loved about this movie? Uh, obviously one of the main topics of conversation on this podcast is, uh, like great directors. And while I thought she did, while did an astonishing job, but like there's like a really, really distinct style to this movie where I don't think. She overindulges in like big closeups like she lets this play out somewhat theatrically. Like you're watching a stage play, but it definitely feels cinematic. And there is like a physical architecture to the apartment that the film is set in. And the geometry of the shots.

• 12:55Speaker 03

  You really have an idea of like the world that exists for the Rogan characters office versus like the part of the house that they aren't proud of versus, you know, the specter of their daughter who's at a sleepover.

• 13:07Sean Fennessey?

  She talked at length in our conversation about this.

• 13:09Speaker 03

  It's very, very, very well realized. The set decoration is incredible. I did, I loved the fact that it felt like this film had multiple authors. I love the fact that, um, I'm sure you could cast this, you could do a, a roadshow of the invite with different people. But only Rogan would have played that character that way. Only Wilde would have played that character that way, and certainly only Cruz and Norton would have played those characters that way. And it could have gone wrong in so many different ways if somebody was too big or somebody was too little in their performances. And I felt real, real equity from everybody involved of like, I own this character and I want them to, I'm, I'm going to treat them with the dignity that I have in my mind about that.

• 13:55Speaker 03

  So like you, you really do get old school movies swept up into like, I'm watching a real person. I've seen Rogan do this bit for 25 years now or whatever, but not like this. And not restrained the way I think he was held back a little bit in this movie. And I really admire Wilde for doing that.

• 14:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I mean, everybody gets to have their showcase, but they also have to play within the system. And I had a similar thought. I don't know if you had that thought too, that it felt like there was a lot of, on set contribution, watching the movie. I was like, these are Seth Rogen jokes. Like he, these are so finely attuned, like the best version of him being a cranky asshole. And I felt very much the same way with the Edward Norton performance. I'm like, this, I, I've said, this is the best use of him in a long time. And I encourage people to stick around and listen to what Olivia Wilde talked about his major contribution, um, in terms of the thing that he. You're describing because he did something in this movie that it's not unusual, but you don't really often hear about it.

• 14:58Sean Fennessey?

  In terms of like how somebody gets a chance to take some ownership over a sequence. And I, I think the same can be said for Penelope Cruz. Like if, if that's a, if that's a different actress at a different age or from a different country. Or, you know, with a different kind of like persona that we, that they bring to the screen. That Pina doesn't work as well as a character and she gets to be this like.

• 15:21Speaker 03

  He gets to be Almodovar Penelope Cruz.

• 15:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. And she gets to be this like crusading strident figure in the first half. And then kind of falls apart in the second half too. And there's something, they really, all four of them have a lot of shape to the character that I really, really liked. And I agree, even though they're such famous people with such. I would say Olivia Wilde has the least defined screen persona of the four of them.

• 15:42Amanda Dobbins?

  But, but she is at least, she is playing against the idea that we have of Olivia Wilde as like the, you know, the most beautiful woman in the world. And the, she's often like, if not the hot girl, then like a figure of desire in a film.

• 15:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 15:59Amanda Dobbins?

  And in this movie, she's shooting herself and dressed herself. And also the character is written as like desperate and annoying. And you can like see the bags under her eyes, which I just, I give her so much credit for. So I, I agree with you that it does feel.

• 16:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Like each of the characters are, you know, from, from the actors or like using what the actors have and what we know about the actors. And like spinning on them in interesting ways.

• 16:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think, um. There's also something in this that I've, I've been meaning to talk to you guys about. And I probably brought it up with each of you individually over the last couple of years, but I'm really interested in the idea of new friendship. When you're a little older.

• 16:42Speaker 03

  You have brought this up.

• 16:42Sean Fennessey?

  And. Because you know, we have a lot of old friends. We have a lot of friends who we've and we've been lucky that we've been able to. A lot of our friends have moved out to this city and we've stayed close. We've been able to work together. But then two things happened, like one, you just you meet people in the world and you make new friends. But then we had kids and you're constantly confronted by new people. And you're like, is this person my friend now?

• 17:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 17:03Sean Fennessey?

  Do we socialize without our children? And this movie is also about that. This movie is about two people who are like seemingly not very good at socializing, don't have a very big social circle. Their life has become, you know, Seth Rogen's character's job. Their 11 year old daughter. Maybe not much else, rug shopping. And so in an effort to kind of open their world up a little bit in more ways than one, they invite this new couple into their life to see what could happen. And I don't know, I find it interesting. Like I'm enjoying making new friends at this stage in my life, but it does. It never quite feels like an old friend. You know what I mean?

• 17:40Speaker 03

  For me, part of the not problem, but part of the phenomenon of it is that I'm still friends with my old friends. So I think that like I, I really enjoy meeting new people and I enjoy hanging out with new people. But like, I unfortunately am also like right next to you and Zach. So then I'm like, oh, like, so.

• 18:01Speaker 03

  So we can just watch golf for five hours and it's the most fun I'm going to have this week. You know what I mean? Like, it's, it's hard. I think that there is like something about like these two characters in this film that I found like really well drawn, where it's probably like a combination of feeling like you failed professionally and that you've devoted a lot of life to, a lot of your life to your kid, has made you recede from the world outside.

• 18:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 18:26Speaker 03

  In a big way.

• 18:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Some of it is that they just don't know how to be social people or grownups at all. And there's so much anxiety about having the people over and, you know, performing the role of we are hosts, we do this all the time. Like, we know how to put like a cheese board together. This is like, we have the rituals down. We know how to be people. But yeah, I mean, making hard, making friends is hard at any age. But this does identify something about.

• 18:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Like as an adult, it just seems like everybody else has already figured out how to make friends and is already friends. And you feel like you're just the people who were not invited to the party and everyone else is already there. And, and you know, and you learn that that's not true. And everybody is like figuring out like all the time, like, oh, are you my new preschool mom friend? Like, are you, is this a friend date? You know, it is very much like the same feelings individually or as a couple. But because not everyone is, you know, you start school and everybody starts school together, right? Like you graduate from college, you all like move to a city or in like new phases of life. And everybody is kind of open for business. But like, once you're an adult.

• 19:39Sean Fennessey?

  When you're 45.

• 19:40Amanda Dobbins?

  No one's open for business.

• 19:41Speaker 03

  Also, I just think friendship when you're younger is less modular. Like you, you, you, maybe you have roommates or maybe you just have your buddies in college or early life and wherever, what city you're living in the twenties and you're like, let's just hang out for three days. Like more or less not, like nonstop. Like, let's go to the bar, but then tomorrow, let's get bacon, egg and cheeses. And then let's go to the movies, then let's go back to the bar. That doesn't really happen now. You are much more like, would you like to come over from four to 6:30? Would you like to meet me here for 27 minutes?

• 20:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 20:09Speaker 03

  And then, or for five minutes before a movie or whatever. So it's like.

• 20:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Are you going to be in town anytime in the next three months?

• 20:16Speaker 03

  Yes. And the dinner party idea, the convention of this film is excellent because it's like, it is, it is basically like the, the language that you're forced to learn of like, well, we have to provide some sort of attraction for socializing. It has to be a cheese board, it has to be this. And then the great thing about it is that then the movie turns. And I'm always reminded of this Rogan quote that he gave Seth Rogen. Uh, that this.

• 20:42Sean Fennessey?

  Not Joe? You've been speaking of Joe this week.

• 20:45Speaker 03

  I have, I talked about this with Andy. I thought that his Taylor Sheridan episode was illuminating.

• 20:49Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, I'll bet.

• 20:52Speaker 03

  He, Seth Rogen does a really interesting conversation. I can't remember, I think this on the off camera interview show. Um, but he talks about the difference between plot and story. I think we've talked about it before, but plot is like the like this, then that, then this, that people think they're getting. And then story is what the movie is really about, right? So usually what this movie is like, a couple has a dinner party and their guests come with an unexpected proposition. And. It should, in 90% of movies that would be about this, bring them closer together. And instead, in this one, it just kind of exacerbates the schism between them, I think. Although then you start to get into the panopticon of how did you view this film?

• 21:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, and then it does also, okay, so spoilers, I guess, at this point.

• 21:42Sean Fennessey?

  Sure.

• 21:43Amanda Dobbins?

  And.

• 21:44Sean Fennessey?

  Spoilers for the invite.

• 21:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Spoilers for the invite.

• 21:47Speaker 03

  And Weapons and The Odyssey.

• 21:50Sean Fennessey?

  Husbands and Wives.

• 21:51Speaker 03

  And Husbands and Wives, yes.

• 21:53Sean Fennessey?

  And Cloak and Dagger from 1982.

• 21:56Speaker 03

  And Taylor Sheridan's appearance on Joe Rogan.

• 21:57Amanda Dobbins?

  And it's not that much of a spoiler, because Chekhov's loud sex noises are introduced very early on in the movie, before Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton come over. So you know that they're getting up to some stuff upstairs that can be heard in the apartment.

• 22:12Sean Fennessey?

  Pina and Hawk.

• 22:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Pina and Hawk are into group sex, and they host these parties. And they accepted the dinner invitation from Joe and Angela. Those are their names.

• 22:25Sean Fennessey?

  That's right.

• 22:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Olivia Wilde playing someone named Angela is like a bridge too far for me, but that's okay.

• 22:29Sean Fennessey?

  Understood.

• 22:29Amanda Dobbins?

  I liked this movie.

• 22:32Amanda Dobbins?

  I think also, just, you know, do you know any Angelas?

• 22:36Speaker 03

  I did once.

• 22:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 22:38Speaker 03

  I worked with an Angela.

• 22:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, it's a lovely name, it just doesn't seem.

• 22:41Sean Fennessey?

  My next door neighbor growing up was named Angela, but she's about 92 years old.

• 22:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, right, that was kind of my point, a different generation. Anyway, they've come to dinner to invite Joe and Angela to have sex, in really any permutation that suits them.

• 22:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, all together.

• 22:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, just to kind of feel it out, to see how things go.

• 22:59Sean Fennessey?

  This is me sending texts about potential podcast appearances. How would you want to do it? What would it be about? Choose a film.

• 23:07Amanda Dobbins?

  And so.

• 23:07Sean Fennessey?

  We have a menu.

• 23:08Amanda Dobbins?

  So there is.

• 23:09Speaker 03

  Do you want to sit in the chair while Alex and Tracy talk?

• 23:14Sean Fennessey?

  That's where I want you every time.

• 23:17Amanda Dobbins?

  So there's a lot of this and there is a lot of, you know, eventually the subject is broached. Then there's a great, great scene where they are speaking frankly, about the menu and pegging and how it works and what's happening. And Olivia Wilde asks a lot, character asks a lot of the questions I always want to ask, which is just like, how does it work in a, in a real sense? And the movie does also answer some questions for me of like, is there a cheese plate at these, you know, gatherings? Like, is there small talk?

• 23:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 23:45Amanda Dobbins?

  How is it all apportioned off?

• 23:47Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 23:48Amanda Dobbins?

  The menu is more for conventions. We're, we learn.

• 23:52Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 23:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, they don't have a menu at this dinner party.

• 23:55Sean Fennessey?

  No, we don't see it.

• 23:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Of your preferences.

• 23:57Sean Fennessey?

  It's not laminated like at a Greek diner.

• 23:58Amanda Dobbins?

  And so then there's more discussion and so they do pair off. Some things happen, but nothing, nothing graphic and nothing conclusive, shall we say?

• 24:11Sean Fennessey?

  Well put.

• 24:12Amanda Dobbins?

  And then why does it? Oh, Seth Rogen throws his back. The most you could have.

• 24:18Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I said it to Olivia. I was like, I'm a 43 year old man who's been married for a long time with a bad back. This is, this movie, you know, this is play about us. I think, I'm not sure I wholly identify with the Seth Rogen character, but I think there is something universal about the Seth Rogen character for many men. And that sense of being thwarted, you know? He is a real classic thwarted, but also bitterly sarcastic person. And to me, I think this is the best thing Olivia Wilde's ever done. I think the fact that it, it strains out all that glamour that she brings to so many roles really helps her. The movie is dedicated to Diane Keaton and she is giving a very Diane Keaton performance.

• 25:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 25:01Sean Fennessey?

  And I say that as a compliment. And that character, I don't know that I've, I've yet seen this person. I mean, I really wanted to ask you about this. Because some of the things that she's saying and some of the feelings that she's having, I have had those conversations with my wife because she's at the same stage of life, the character is that, that we are right now. And it's very

• 25:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 25:20Sean Fennessey?

  Direct, you know? I would say like emotionally about what's going on with women in their 40s in a way I really liked.

• 25:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, right. I mean, you know, the, the peri-menopause scene and the, the testicles, what is it compared to?

• 25:34Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 25:35Amanda Dobbins?

  The olives or she's crushing olives? I mean, it's like all time stuff and salute Olivia Wilde for, for putting that in a movie. But I think much in the same way that you like relate and identify with Seth Rogen, but it's not, it's a character, right? And it's a combination of like a heightened version of all of these things that all of the bad or negative or, you know, setbacks that can happen to a woman in her 40s where doesn't really have any life outside of the home, physical desperate changes, doesn't really connect with the husband anymore, feels like completely cut off from her sexuality. And like, you know, at a time where you're like basically going through puberty 2.0.

• 26:19Amanda Dobbins?

  So it, she's, she's down bad, you know, in a way that I, I agree. I haven't seen anyone with this entire collection of problems.

• 26:28Sean Fennessey?

  There's one other thing that that character does really well. And then she gets met by the Norton character really smartly, which is like the way that people will throw themselves into their, like their hobbies, you know, they're like, they're sort of like aesthetic interests.

• 26:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 26:39Sean Fennessey?

  And she's, she's a, she's a, she's a rug gal, you know, she loves rugs.

• 26:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, she's decorating the home.

• 26:45Sean Fennessey?

  And she, the movie effectively opens with her bringing a rug home.

• 26:49Speaker 03

  Essentially like, I think one of the things that I really like is the way that Wilde shoots the home while there is some of the interior decorating porn of the drama and other, you know, like contemporary films. There's a scene in particular where Angela is showing off her bathroom and the tile in the bathroom and like how she wanted to like basically keep the old skeleton of the, you know, the structure and bring back the spirit, but also put like something new on top of it. And it looks like she's in prison. She's like stuck in this bathtub. She's like, kind of like clinging to the curtain. And then Edward Norton's response is like, I'm not a big tile guy, you know? And it's so great because I think it just throws off like her whole equilibrium of being

• 27:32Speaker 03

  like, finally someone who appreciates me for what I'm doing here.

• 27:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 27:36Speaker 03

  And like appreciates the work I'm putting into the appearance of this thing. And no, this guy of course has to have some sort of soul communion with rugs. I want to just hit one more time.

• 27:49Speaker 03

  The utilization of Rogan in relationship to Wild, and so I'm giving Olivia Wilde, obviously, credit for this, is when you watch the studio, an equally brilliant comic performance that has some dramatic moments.

• 28:05Speaker 03

  The scenes are written, I think, and I really like the studio, but the scenes are written to maximize the jokes, I think, and to maximize the sort of cringiness of the moment in the show.

• 28:15Sean Fennessey?

  I'll say the pathos is broad.

• 28:18Speaker 03

  The pathos is broad and it strains believability.

• 28:23Sean Fennessey?

  It's not realistic.

• 28:23Speaker 03

  It's like, this guy wouldn't be able to hold this job for 48 hours if he acted like this. There's no way in which, like, he could fuck over this many people or screw up this many film sets or whatever. Like, it just wouldn't happen. And sometimes I think probably we're a little too close to the film industry, so we're like, that's funny, but it's not exactly how it would go.

• 28:41Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 28:42Speaker 03

  I love the fact that this is actually how somebody who can't take anything seriously would be treated by three other people. And it's like, it usually is like, well, no, he's the funniest person in the movie, so everybody should create like a sounding board and a kind of receptive audience.

• 29:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, space for him.

• 29:00Speaker 03

  And the only person who can be there is his nagging wife, but she still loves him no matter what, you know? Like, that's not the case in this. This actually makes the Rogan character so grating, because even though he's hilarious, you're like, I can't, dude, I can't believe how you're fucking like, killing every vibe because you can't shut the fuck up.

• 29:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think we find empathy for him by the end, but for the most of the movie, he's the villain.

• 29:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, well, and so how we do that is interesting and also leads us to the Edward Norton and Penelope Cruz characters, Hawk and Pina, who are, you know, swan in, like, beautiful, confident, hosting group sex parties up above their house, like, they have no problems.

• 29:46Sean Fennessey?

  Both wearing black, in contrast to Seth and Olivia's characters, both wearing denim, and they both kind of like match each other.

• 29:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. And even like through the negotiation and the, you know, separate, so they decide to...

• 30:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Switch it up, I guess. It's I guess it's like a swinging arrangement.

• 30:05Speaker 03

  Couple swap.

• 30:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Couple swap. Yeah, there you go. And they decamp to different parts of the apartment. And even through that, our leading the way and the Joe and Angela characters like kind of can't believe what's going on. And then back gets thrown out, everyone's brought back together. And their characters start showing their their soft spots and their ugliness. And you are, you know, it's revealed that this is pretty new. And also that they don't really have it together either. And that what they're doing is as much a coping mechanism for other things. And that, you know, there isn't some fantasy world where everyone just has it figured out and you guys can't.

• 30:51Speaker 03

  There's also the great reverse where it should be that Edward Norton and Penelope, Hawk and Pina introducing group sex to Angela and Joe undoes their relationship. But in fact,

• 31:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 31:04Speaker 03

  Angela and Joe's toxicity undoes Hawk and Pina's to an extent.

• 31:09Sean Fennessey?

  That's one of the great strokes of the movie is that this kind of thing is infectious in a bad way. Like it's that that the hostility that Joe has and Angela's ability to reconcile like her own unhappiness in the marriage. I mean, that's the the thing that is going on is like she made a commitment to a guy early in her life, who she thought was really cool. And then he turned out to be not so cool. They grew apart. She has her own problems, but like he did not help the issue with his the way he has kind of retracted into his depression. And it's kind of getting on Hawk and Pina, who are in kind of the honeymoon period of their life. They've been together for about a year. You know, they're both, they both have clearly lived other lives. And this is the time when that that the honeymoon is sort of maybe about to end.

• 31:52Sean Fennessey?

  And they're they're confronted with this stark reality of like, well, you could become like this if you're not too careful.

• 31:59Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 31:59Sean Fennessey?

  Which is this, again, another really smart construction of the story. It doesn't, I feel like it doesn't take those like easy comedy shortcuts.

• 32:05Speaker 03

  No, it doesn't. And then exactly at the point where we are fully in spoiler territory, but right when you're at the point Of, oh, Hawk and Pina are just as fake as these two. Like, that's not even his name. You get yet another turn where the Edward Norton character gives this monologue, which is sort of becomes the centerpiece of the film, I think.

• 32:25Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, outrageous stuff.

• 32:26Sean Fennessey?

  And is like, honestly, could hear, it is a pin drop moment in the film where you're like, if I didn't hear a single sound in the theater that we were in, and... In an otherwise, like, fairly uproarious screening room.

• 32:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, but it, but it is kind of like, it's just like Alec Baldwin doing Glengarry. You're like, what the fuck is happening? This guy just blacked out and it completely throws the film off its axis again.

• 32:52Speaker 03

  And then I think the last 20 minutes or so are the ones that I, I, I'm still thinking about. The ones that I'm still like, I don't know how I felt about the possible metaphysical aspects of Hawk and Pina, or...

• 33:07Sean Fennessey?

  I wanted to ask you guys about that, yeah. I think there's a, there's a reading that I think is strange, but there's a reading of it, you could say, where these are sort of projections.

• 33:14Speaker 03

  Well, I would just say it's a choice. It's a choice that Olivia Wilde makes to basically have Hawk and Pina's exit from the apartment, eventual exit, seem almost supernatural to...

• 33:25Sean Fennessey?

  They're suddenly gone.

• 33:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, and it's like, were they ever there? Uh, I don't think that that's the case, but I also think it is a choice to do it that way.

• 33:33Amanda Dobbins?

  It raises the possibility, yeah.

• 33:35Speaker 03

  And then the end, end, the end of the film is incredibly soft, given the sort of feeling of the rest of the movie, I think.

• 33:44Sean Fennessey?

  And ambiguous, and it is a bookend with the opening.

• 33:47Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 33:47Sean Fennessey?

  The film opens with this kind of duet, this piano performance kind of happening in like a hazy mind, and it ends with the two of them seated next to each other after this really bare-knuckle, kind of it's over confrontation.

• 34:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:03Sean Fennessey?

  And they play together, and then the movie ends. And I, I asked Olivia Wilde this, I'm curious how you guys feel about it, whether or not this is a movie that is optimistic or pessimistic, whether it's a movie about two people who have gotten through something and will stay together, if it's about a movie that's about two people who will break up immediately, if it's about two people who will break up and still love each other, or people who will break up and be embittered towards one another. Like, there's a lot of potential outcomes, and its ambiguity, I think, is actually quite powerful.

• 34:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 34:31Sean Fennessey?

  It's a Rorschach test, right, for like,

• 34:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:33Sean Fennessey?

  How, how do, not just this relationship, but like, how do relationships work now?

• 34:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I thought the thing that I is a hallmark of fights that I have had with significant others or with my wife is like that crazy feeling where you're like, what's happening? Like, how bad is this? You know what I mean? Like, whenever there's like a moment where you're like, I often fuck up where I'm like, I thought we were arguing, but now we're fighting. You know, like, I thought we were just like, yeah, each other. And now all of a sudden, I don't remember what we're fighting about, but it's about everything. And

• 35:07Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I don't let that happen ever. I like, I just, I can't, I like abort.

• 35:11Speaker 03

  Do you just leave?

• 35:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, oh, totally. I'm just like, I'm sorry, I can't do. But that's like, it's half child or divorce and half, we've learned that only child. Because I didn't learn the sibling thing of you can be at each other's throats one second, and then you're just like back to normal because you live together.

• 35:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 35:28Amanda Dobbins?

  And I just, I straight up don't have that. So

• 35:30Speaker 03

  But I, I, I do think that there's an element to this movie where I think for both characters, maybe more for Joe, and maybe that's just my identify more with him as like, I'm like, oh, this is like every night. Like, do they come, he comes home, she's in a fucking tizzy about something, he's, his back hurts, and they just start fighting. And maybe they keep it together because they have a daughter there six nights a week or whatever. But this is the, this is like, kind of like where their relationship has arrived of like a constant ball breaking until it's time to like, get into this

• 36:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, that's so fascinating, because I interpret it like this is something that's been bottled up or unacknowledged for. Yeah. And this is like

• 36:09Speaker 03

  I thought, I got the feeling like

• 36:11Amanda Dobbins?

  This is like, basically, they're like bar mitzvah, you know, it's like the, the thing that has to happen for them to transition to the next

• 36:17Speaker 03

  That's fascinating. So I

• 36:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, version of what their relationship will be. That being said, I don't know that that means that they break up.

• 36:24Speaker 03

  Yeah. And I, yeah, I was like, the piano playing at the end of me was like an indication that maybe like

• 36:31Speaker 03

  And now we play our coda on like another night of insane fighting where we realize, well, the only two people we have in this crazy ocean are each other.

• 36:40Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know if I have a definitive takeaway on this. I really like what both of you said. I think both of those potentialities make sense to me. I do think that Seth Rogen is maybe a little too skilled at sniping for this to be the first time they've ever really been nose to nose, but maybe she hasn't been as confrontational with him in the same way. There's a great scene in the movie and during that final fight at the end where Rogan is kind of losing it and he shifts to a really dramatic performance where he's like, why can't you just like leave me alone in my depression?

• 37:11Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 37:11Sean Fennessey?

  Why can't you just let me be unhappy? Which I would not say is a feeling that I relate to, but I do, like, I understand.

• 37:18Speaker 03

  I think we relate to it in our parents.

• 37:20Sean Fennessey?

  That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And it's a really powerful choice to let him say that out loud because I don't think people really ever get to say that out loud. But it is a common feeling that a lot of people in unhappy marriages have.

• 37:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:34Sean Fennessey?

  And she of course is like, of course I can't let you do that.

• 37:36Speaker 03

  If we've watched our parents now, we'd probably be like, these people are unhappy. Like these, when they're together, you know, like they, and like for the most part are either like forced to stay together or never speak to each other again. And so to watch two people who are like, but I wanted so much more for myself and now I live in a society where I'm constantly bombarded with pathways to that, whether it's sexual, intellectual, pharmacological, whatever, you know, like it's, it's gotta be almost worse. You know what I mean?

• 38:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. And the movie is really smart at showing us all of these different signposts for those things where we see inside the bathroom vanity that there is medication, that we see eventually Wild's character takes some of that medication. We see that Seth Rogen's character is very quick to go spark a, spark a joint.

• 38:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. They don't have any wine in the house.

• 38:30Sean Fennessey?

  Well, they have the good bottle.

• 38:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, they have the good bottle, but I was like, only the one good bottle in this apartment?

• 38:35Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe they drank all of it the day before. Maybe that's something else that is going on that we don't really know about.

• 38:39Amanda Dobbins?

  If they do that, then Seth Rogen knows to stop on his electric bike on the way home and pick up.

• 38:44Speaker 03

  It's recumbent. It's not electric.

• 38:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, sorry. It's not like, I'm sorry. Yeah. That one I was just kind of, I mean, maybe they're not drinkers. Maybe they're California sober or whatever, but uh.

• 38:52Sean Fennessey?

  Could be. Um, you know, there's other examples of this throughout the movie too, where the sort of like. The souffle, which she forgets about and overcooks, which is a metaphor unto itself. The hamon, where you think you've done something elegant and elevated and you're meeting someone at their culture and you've misunderstood and misacquired something. The flan that Pina makes and her ability to make something kind of light and sweet and tasteful.

• 39:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Pina does ask for the Tupperware back for the flan.

• 39:20Sean Fennessey?

  She does.

• 39:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Which I just, I mean, which is an incredible moment. And, but again, like those characters do show their own weaknesses at the end.

• 39:29Sean Fennessey?

  They do. Even just the, everyone's job.

• 39:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 39:34Sean Fennessey?

  You know, that Hawk is a retired firefighter and he's learning about rolthing. And Pina is a sexual psychotherapist. And Angela doesn't have a job. And they live in this house that they've inherited from Joe's parents. And that they have a, you know, that he has a ton of hangups about that and about his own individual failure after writing one pop song that was a, how popular do you think that pop song was?

• 40:01Speaker 03

  I think that was like an indie rock song that had some burn.

• 40:03Sean Fennessey?

  Make a comparison. Is it clap your hands, say yeah?

• 40:07Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 40:08Amanda Dobbins?

  It doesn't, it didn't seem that, cool is the wrong word, but like they seem out, I guess they're locating in 2008, like Brooklyn-esque.

• 40:19Sean Fennessey?

  Pumped up kicks?

• 40:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, maybe closer to that. Yeah, that's kinda.

• 40:24Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 40:24Speaker 03

  It's not like, he wasn't in semi-sonic. That would be too.

• 40:27Sean Fennessey?

  Right, too big.

• 40:28Speaker 03

  Too big.

• 40:29Sean Fennessey?

  Too big.

• 40:29Speaker 03

  But you're on the right track with like blog indie era.

• 40:34Sean Fennessey?

  Yet another little like portal for me into the movie where I'm like, oh, you were like a 2007 indie rock star? Like this movie is really, we're in this time. This is like, this is the flip side of Devil Wears Prada 2 and the animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie where I'm like, wow, just. Our people are all making the movies at the center of the world now.

• 40:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 40:54Sean Fennessey?

  And that's really weird.

• 40:55Speaker 03

  Like, no, it was interesting in my childhood.

• 40:57Sean Fennessey?

  That's how it feels, you know, and, and, you know, I think Olivia Wilde, of course, is, is divorced and Seth Rogen is not divorced. And she talked about that. They have different perspectives on the ending of this movie.

• 41:06Speaker 03

  He also doesn't have kids.

• 41:07Sean Fennessey?

  He doesn't have kids and like the strain that that can introduce into a relationship.

• 41:10Speaker 03

  I thought, what did you think of the fact that the daughter is mentioned, but does not play any, any, any role is like absent, never, inadvertently comes home in the middle of the movie or like they have to go pick her up in the morning like is kind of like out of the picture here.

• 41:26Amanda Dobbins?

  I liked it because then it can just be about their marriage and their relationship.

• 41:31Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 41:31Amanda Dobbins?

  And you can't, I mean, it, and it, and it works in the sense that she's on a sleepover. I can only imagine what it's like to have your child regularly out of the home that often, you know, I'm not there yet, but.

• 41:41Speaker 03

  In a cool way.

• 41:42Amanda Dobbins?

  In a cool way, but.

• 41:45Sean Fennessey?

  Feels very far away.

• 41:46Amanda Dobbins?

  It feels, yeah. So it felt very far away that sort of strain could truly to me, but is also that's just because of where I am in life. I thought.

• 41:54Speaker 03

  I'm gonna be very, I'm really gonna laugh if I come over and you've got like a boarding school pamphlet on your table.

• 41:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's called Camp Chris.

• 42:01Speaker 03

  Checking out all the options, you know?

• 42:03Sean Fennessey?

  They can just stay with you for a few weeks.

• 42:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 42:05Sean Fennessey?

  Um, I agree with what you were saying earlier as well about.

• 42:09Speaker 03

  Come back looking like Bo Jackson.

• 42:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Cause it's great.

• 42:12Sean Fennessey?

  Is that what you're doing?

• 42:13Speaker 03

  Multi-sport.

• 42:13Sean Fennessey?

  Getting them pumped up?

• 42:14Speaker 03

  Stars, yeah.

• 42:14Sean Fennessey?

  Protein shake?

• 42:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:17Sean Fennessey?

  This episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Amazon Prime. What pairs with a good comedy? The cozy blanket arriving with Prime. What pairs with a nail biting thriller? Snacks arriving with Prime. What pairs with big game on Prime Video? That new couch arriving with Prime. Whatever feeling you're after, Prime helps bring it to life with great entertainment and fast shipping that delivers what the moment calls for. From streaming to fast shipping, it's on Prime.

• 42:42Sean Fennessey?

  Movies shot really well. Looks good, shot on film. I almost always knows where the camera should be, on whose face. And it's not always the person who's talking. And the thing that I noticed the first time I saw it, and I've had a chance to see it twice now, is she frequently frames characters at the distance from which the person talking to them is. So like, it's almost as if the camera were the person. So it's how you're being perceived by the other person is the way that we watch the movie, which is a simple choice, but is a very, very effective one. Because it's a movie about a bunch of people who are just like, why doesn't anyone?

• 43:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 43:15Sean Fennessey?

  Does anyone know I'm alive? Like, there is that feeling that, I think you get in your 40s sometimes, where you're like, ah, am I vanishing? And especially Angela is totally vanishing. And one of the things that her character does in the movie, which is sort of revealed, since we're fully in spoiler territory, is that after she gets out of the shower, she will frequently walk past the window that overlooks Pina and Hawk's apartment, and she will display herself nude to Hawk, though not to Pina, which I thought was interesting.

• 43:42Speaker 03

  But then they go have sex talking about her.

• 43:45Sean Fennessey?

  That's right.

• 43:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:45Sean Fennessey?

  That's right. And the movie then shifts perspectives where we see from through the window, down the window the other way. Like, it is a very smartly constructed perspectival movie.

• 43:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, it is. I mean, it is one location, and it is an apartment, and then sort of the apartment upstairs through a window. But it also, it uses, the alliances between the four characters are shifting throughout the movie. And so where the characters are framed, both in the frame and respective to each other, is communicated very smartly and clearly throughout the movies. And, I mean, it is also, you understand the geography of the apartment itself, and how people are moving around it and where they are, which is very hard to communicate, especially in such a, you know, closed environment over time.

• 44:31Sean Fennessey?

  It is. It's really, it's an impressive piece of directing.

• 44:34Speaker 03

  I've thought about this movie a lot in relationship to the drama, because I think it augurs something very positive for contemporary movies. If we're gonna make films that have like a very high concept, but are less concerned with the concept than they are with the characters, and also what's universal about the movie, rather than what's highly specific about it. So there are so many things in both of those films where you're like, that moment is so... If not relatable, like real, even if the specificity of group sex or a school, a threatened school shooting are not, you know, something that everybody has familiarity with, but there does seem to be a willingness now to like, be like, we have to sell it on

• 45:19Speaker 03

  this. We have to sell it that there's going to be a big second act twist of some kind. But like, the people in these movies feel like real characters to me and like real, like, I don't know, I'm very, this gave me very positive vibes. It's the same, it's the same way that we're like, you know, singing the praises of obsession in Back Room for bringing some kind of original storytelling mechanism back. I, I'm very excited. I mean, this could easily slip away and become like the cut essay of films, you know, like-

• 45:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, you mean that everyone will see it and-

• 45:51Speaker 03

  Or just that, like, you could make a cheap version of this. That's like my group sex that went, went wrong or whatever, but like, um, I think that-

• 45:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Let me be clear, I'd read as many of those cut essays as they want to commission.

• 46:03Sean Fennessey?

  I think the movie earns its seriousness. It's a very funny comedy, but it really does earn, I think, some of the deeper conversation that we're having here. And there's like, I was trying to figure out a way to kind of frame the movie and I couldn't totally figure it out. But it's like, there's a lot of, it's a movie of confinement, right? So you could be like, oh, it's like 12 Angry Men, or it's like, um, Ex Machina, or something like that. And you have to think about that, that geography that you were describing, Amanda. But it is really like a, as you noted to us, like a nightmare couples movie.

• 46:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 46:31Sean Fennessey?

  And whether or not there's two couples or one couple in this movie is an interesting idea, but I did want to at least hear from you guys, like, what are versions of this kind of formulation that you like? Because it is very tried and true. So we each chose five. You want to, you want to, you want to get, what, you want to hit us with your list?

• 46:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Well, you guys picked some of, some of mine. So I just tried to get creative with it. So, uh, number five, Edward and Connie, AKA Richard Gere and Diane Lane from Unfaithful. Well, it's, you know, it's a classic suburban, everything looks great on the surface, but then it's a windy day in Soho and-

• 47:07Sean Fennessey?

  Would you do that?

• 47:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Would I have sex with that guy in a-

• 47:12Sean Fennessey?

  Other way, other, other side.

• 47:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, would I kill the person who, um, the rare book dealer? Is that what he does? He's a rare book dealer?

• 47:20Sean Fennessey?

  Who are you looking at just now?

• 47:21Amanda Dobbins?

  At the booth, you know, my inner self.

• 47:26Amanda Dobbins?

  With it? No, because

• 47:29Sean Fennessey?

  You wouldn't do it?

• 47:29Amanda Dobbins?

  No, because I would would find the the all the cleanup and the cover up very stressful.

• 47:34Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 47:35Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, which I Richard Gere's character does. But um, I don't I don't think it would be like a violent outburst like that. It would be more like I would collect my revenge over time, you know?

• 47:47Sean Fennessey?

  That sounds right.

• 47:50Sean Fennessey?

  All right, what's number four?

• 47:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, Henry and Eleanor in Lion and Winter, which is just, that's a different arrangement. They don't see each other anymore, except for Christmas with their children. And then they say incredibly rude things to each other. And at the end, they're like, you know what? There's no one like you in my life, so that's beautiful.

• 48:08Sean Fennessey?

  15th century husbands and wives.

• 48:10Amanda Dobbins?

  As she sails, as she literally sails back to prison. But that's that's some good shit. Peter O'Toole, Catherine Hepburn, you know, I'm I'm open to that. All right, number three, Liliana and Troy, Reality Bites. These people are just fucking insufferable. And obviously, then the logic of the movie, they gotta get together at the end. And being young is important, and you should live it to the fullest. But would you want to spend one minute around them? And is it anything gonna work out for them?

• 48:38Speaker 03

  I love the new boys with Troy.

• 48:40Amanda Dobbins?

  I've, listen, I'm

• 48:41Sean Fennessey?

  Devil's bargain there.

• 48:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Kind for Troy for forever.

• 48:44Sean Fennessey?

  Troy in his 40s, how would that be going?

• 48:47Speaker 03

  Much like, I think, the Rogan character.

• 48:49Sean Fennessey?

  I agree, I agree. Uh, okay.

• 48:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Florence Pugh and Jack Rayner in Midsommar.

• 48:55Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, yeah.

• 48:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, this is tough.

• 48:56Sean Fennessey?

  That one turns out.

• 48:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, sure, yeah. And but the movie is really mostly about that. And and this guy being a dumb dumb. And she just stays there much longer than she should, you know? Because sometimes that happens.

• 49:10Sean Fennessey?

  Those are great.

• 49:11Amanda Dobbins?

  And no, and then and then Reynolds Woodcock and Alma, Phantom Thread. But this is positive, this is aspirational.

• 49:17Speaker 03

  Are you?

• 49:18Amanda Dobbins?

  I think it's a beautiful portrait of marriage.

• 49:20Speaker 03

  As a as a wife to a damaged man right now.

• 49:23Amanda Dobbins?

  I've been thinking a lot about Phantom Thread, honestly, but my husband recent recently had shoulder surgery. Oh, no, no, like I

• 49:30Sean Fennessey?

  Kiss me, girl, before I'm sick.

• 49:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And and the way that it does, you know, change the dynamic and the vulnerability. And even though, you know, the reality is, is that I'm usually A successful marriage, everybody is Reynolds Woodcock sometimes and everybody is Alma. And you know, and I know you all think I'm Reynolds all the time, but I'm not. Uh, Zach has been recently.

• 49:53Speaker 03

  Have you been sent here?

• 49:57Speaker 03

  Ruin my day?

• 49:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but they figure it out.

• 50:00Sean Fennessey?

  My life.

• 50:01Amanda Dobbins?

  You know?

• 50:02Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, they do. It's a heartwarming tale of destroying one another.

• 50:07Amanda Dobbins?

  That really my life was obsession and he was just in the never ready, standing in the corner, but with the arm.

• 50:13Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, we could add them to this list. They're, they're a perfect fit right now.

• 50:18Amanda Dobbins?

  And another thought I had was like, oh my God, leave the room.

• 50:22Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, Chris, you want to give, give us your, your, your list?

• 50:25Speaker 03

  Uh, I realize now, looking at this, that I picked all murderers, um, but, uh, that's okay. Just to break out of like the kind of heteronormative corner that I sometimes paint myself into, I'll go Brandon and Philip from Rope.

• 50:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 50:37Speaker 03

  Uh, those guys love a dinner party.

• 50:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Two beautiful gay men who want to kill people.

• 50:41Speaker 03

  It's a good movie.

• 50:42Sean Fennessey?

  Rope. Rope is great. Alfred Hitchcock. Yeah. Some of his best.

• 50:47Speaker 03

  Kind of a little surprise here, but I got Bruce Wayne and Talia, Talia Al Ghul from Dark Knight Rises.

• 50:53Sean Fennessey?

  Sure.

• 50:53Speaker 03

  She activates a whole new side of his political thinking and then betrays him by being, uh, Roz Al Ghul's daughter.

• 51:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 51:00Speaker 03

  And coming to fulfill his legacy.

• 51:02Sean Fennessey?

  Kind of a Trump Marjorie Taylor Greene situation.

• 51:03Speaker 03

  But it's more like she takes Bruce Wayne and she's just like, think about the, becoming a Democrat socialist. You know, like there's a lot, there's a lot out there and then it turns out like it's just, she sold him a false bill.

• 51:12Sean Fennessey?

  How much of Marion Cotillard's personal politics does she bring to the part, do you think?

• 51:17Speaker 03

  Did you know that she did the French dubbing for Dark Knight Rises herself?

• 51:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I didn't.

• 51:22Sean Fennessey?

  I should hope so.

• 51:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 51:23Sean Fennessey?

  Cause she's French. Okay.

• 51:26Speaker 03

  I also have Mickey and Mallory from Natural Born Killers, uh, the, the Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis characters. Uh, you know, um, two of the best Bonnie and Clyde's of my, of my lifetime. Ace and Ginger from Casino, two people who probably just should not have been in a, in a romantic relationship with one another. She obviously, um, was also interested in group sex, um, maybe just with different guys, you know?

• 51:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. More polyamorous, I would say.

• 51:56Speaker 03

  And then the, I think the ones who were probably the number one scene are Nick and Amy from Gone Girl.

• 52:00Amanda Dobbins?

  This is it. Yeah.

• 52:01Sean Fennessey?

  You know, it didn't even cross my mind, but that's a great one. That's very, that's very toxic.

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• 53:06Sean Fennessey?

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• 53:49Sean Fennessey?

  That's LinkedIn.com/thebigpicture. Terms and conditions apply.

• 53:55Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, I'll do my five quickly. The One I Love, which is a really good movie with Mark Duplass and Elizabeth Moss that came out in 2014, that is a little bit about, well, one, that movie also opens with like a couple playing a piano note.

• 54:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 54:11Sean Fennessey?

  And like that indicating something about their relationship.

• 54:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, yeah.

• 54:14Sean Fennessey?

  Which is what made me think of it, and it's somewhat similar. And then eventually becomes a very twisted portrayal of maybe what you wish your partner could be like and what happens if they would change in some way. That is like a pretty sick, kind of psychological thriller. Number four is Husbands and Wives, and specifically Sally and Jack, the Judy Davis and Sidney Pollack characters. You know, we're fond of claiming Sidney Pollack, oh, this wonderful character actor from Eyes Wide Shut and Michael Clayton. This is the Sidney Pollack performance to me. And the way, when this, when these two split up and start dating other people, and the way in which they become enraged with each other, especially when Judy Davis beds down Liam Neeson, which is some of the best shit in any Woody Allen movie, they're very special

• 54:58Sean Fennessey?

  and evil. Number three is Woman in the Dunes, which is a crazy Japanese movie about a man who gets trapped inside of a dune with a woman and her mom.

• 55:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh.

• 55:08Sean Fennessey?

  And they, they drive the man completely insane. A Teshigahara movie that is absolutely crazy and is kind of like the Invite prequel.

• 55:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 55:17Sean Fennessey?

  And like What Happens If You Get Trapped in My Lair. Number two, Death Trap, which is a kind of a comedy, a Sidney Lumet movie that we talked about on that episode, starring Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve, about two guys who are sort of like mentor mentee.

• 55:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 55:35Sean Fennessey?

  And we think maybe rivals and are perhaps plotting against each other, but are in fact something else entirely.

• 55:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 55:41Sean Fennessey?

  And also very, very toxic to one another. And then the last one's The Lighthouse.

• 55:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I think this is beautiful. This is great.

• 55:49Sean Fennessey?

  I had not really thought about this before, but Robert Pattinson and Wilde Dafoe play a lighthouse keeper and his, his mentee, who's gonna eventually take over the work of overseeing this lighthouse. And-

• 56:05Sean Fennessey?

  Pattinson's character says his name is Ephraim, but he's actually named Thomas and Wilde Dafoe's character is also named Thomas. And they're the same person. And sometimes marriages can feel like that.

• 56:16Speaker 03

  Spoiler for the lighthouse.

• 56:17Sean Fennessey?

  Spoiler for the lighthouse.

• 56:20Sean Fennessey?

  And this movie too, I think that like doubling of the couples where, you know, couples, they just start to like look the same.

• 56:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:26Sean Fennessey?

  After a number of years and you can, you could spot this at a lot of dinner parties in our, in our lives right now where you're like, oh, those two people have just sort of like agglomorated together.

• 56:35Speaker 03

  When Phoebe throws, shows up in a thrasher sweatshirt.

• 56:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Guess whose jacket this is?

• 56:40Sean Fennessey?

  There you go. It's a very fun kind of formulation in a movie.

• 56:45Speaker 03

  I actually had that the other, like a while back where like she was wearing something and I was like, you look really good today. And she's like, I'm wearing your clothes. Like what is, that's weird.

• 56:54Sean Fennessey?

  It's pretty, pretty common.

• 56:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 56:57Sean Fennessey?

  So yeah, the invite.

• 56:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Really great.

• 57:00Sean Fennessey?

  Quality flick.

• 57:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I hope you've already seen it if you're this far in the podcast.

• 57:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. So we didn't talk about this in our best movies of the year so far, but it is, it is very high up there for me. And I think we didn't talk about it because it's, the release is kind of odd where it's opening on June 26, limited, maybe going wide July. It was a Sundance film that was acquired by A24 out of the festival. And it had that old school, like, yo, you gotta see this. Craig Holback, when he saw it, texted me immediately after he saw it. And I was just like, this is a banger.

• 57:28Speaker 03

  Do you think summer is a good time for this to be released?

• 57:30Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's a fall movie. I had just had, was just had this conversation with somebody earlier this week. It's interesting to release it amidst all of the noise going on and I, you know, Olivia talked about how it was really important for her to get this in theaters. Didn't want to sell it to a streamer.

• 57:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. On the other hand, I feel, and it's anecdotal, but I mean, this is counter programming for everything that, you know, and that people in my life haven't seen Disclosure Day yet, or, you know, who are not in the, who are not 20 and there for Obsession Week Five, know about this and are interested. So.

• 58:03Speaker 03

  I think it could certainly have drama-esque.

• 58:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 58:06Speaker 03

  Word of mouth.

• 58:07Sean Fennessey?

  I hope so. That would be really exciting. Okay. Thanks, guys. Let's go now into my conversation with Olivia Wilde.

• 58:16Sean Fennessey?

  We're here with Olivia Wilde. Thank you for being here, Olivia.

• 58:18Speaker 05

  Thank you for having me.

• 58:19Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, so I am a 43-year-old married person with a bad back. So this is a very, very relatable movie for me.

• 58:26Speaker 05

  You feel targeted.

• 58:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, a little bit, in a good way.

• 58:28Speaker 05

  Good, good.

• 58:29Sean Fennessey?

  But I am curious, you are, you know, we're generationally close.

• 58:33Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, 42.

• 58:35Sean Fennessey?

  Is that what attracted you to the script, to directing this? Why did you want to be a part of this movie?

• 58:40Speaker 05

  So many reasons, but specific to that question about the generational connection with the, with the characters, I, I think that the idea of taking on a love story that was specific to this part of life, when one has been through many relationships, sometimes with the same person, that really fascinated me. But I certainly wasn't setting out to make something for a certain kind of generation. I just thought, oh, I haven't seen this story told in this way, and, and I think now I've lived enough life to know how to tell it.

• 59:20Sean Fennessey?

  Right. Yeah, the, watching it, I didn't think like, oh, this is only made for me. It kind of reminded me a little bit of that feeling that I had as a teenager, watching Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

• 59:29Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 59:29Sean Fennessey?

  Or Husbands and Wives, and being like, this is how adults are?

• 59:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 59:33Sean Fennessey?

  And I don't know how to be an adult, but maybe this is like, even if you're unhappy, this is the way you're supposed to be unhappy?

• 59:39Speaker 05

  Well, the thing that fascinates me about those movies is I too was a teenager, loving those movies, and Woody Allen, like, why did I watch Hannah and Her Sisters at 16 and felt, feel like I understood everybody's marital stress?

• 59:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 59:51Speaker 05

  And I think it's because when we are in moments of high stress in relationships, we often behave like our adolescent selves. So I think there is this connection, this recognition from young audiences of adults behaving like kids, because they are out of control, and often...

• 1:00:08Speaker 05

  Love and the dissolution of love can make us feel completely out of control. And so it becomes something that I think every age can recognize.

• 1:00:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's really interesting. I'm curious, did starring in it come first? Were you always going to direct it first? What was the trajectory of your involvement in the project in general?

• 1:00:27Speaker 05

  I was not planning on acting in this movie at all. And certainly, you know, even I acted a bit in Don't Worry Darling, but really out of necessity, we had no money left. So I was like, I'll do this part so that we, you know, so that we have someone in that part. But for The Invite, I was so focused on directing it in a very specific way that was new for me and for many of us in that we were going to shoot this film in order. We were shooting it on 35mm. We were doing this all on a stage, on a set we had built. That, you know, there were, there were so many factors that I wanted to make sure I kept an eye on as a responsible director

• 1:01:10Speaker 05

  that it never would have occurred to me to also act in it. And then it was the cast that asked me to play that role, really based on the fact that, at that point, we had workshopped this material together. And we understood each other and really felt a kind of cohesive flow. It was, it was a clear kind of chemistry. So I asked their permission. Once, I mean, once they asked me to do it, I was like, but wait, do you guys feel like I'll be able to take care of you and be in it? I don't want to, I don't want to drop any balls. I want to, I really want to do this right. This means too much to me. And when they kind of said like, no, you can do it. Also, everyone in this movie is a director.

• 1:01:53Speaker 05

  I mean, Seth's the director, Edward's the director, Penelope is a filmmaker, and she's so experienced. She knows exactly what she's doing. She's actually directing a fabulous documentary right now. And so with their enthusiasm, I kind of, I jumped on board as an actor as well. And I'm really happy I did.

• 1:02:14Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's, it's my favorite of your performances. And it feels like you really feel connected to the character.

• 1:02:20Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:02:21Sean Fennessey?

  But that's gotta be a very strange thing to be locking in with someone who's really like under duress in the movie.

• 1:02:26Speaker 05

  Oh, yes.

• 1:02:26Sean Fennessey?

  For the majority of the movie. And also the just general stress of making a movie.

• 1:02:31Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:02:31Sean Fennessey?

  Did it help?

• 1:02:32Speaker 05

  Totally. Yes. I think, I think directing a movie that you care deeply about is much like hosting a dinner party that you care deeply about where the stakes are extraordinarily high. So in a way, it made perfect sense. It was very meta. It was like I got to use all of my anxiety about the production as a whole and kind of infuse it into this character who really does feel this night determines her self-worth, the future of her marriage. And I, I think that it was kind of a thrill to be able to allow myself to feel all the, the stress I was feeling and kind of channel it through this character who was going through

• 1:03:17Speaker 05

  something that was not entirely unfamiliar to me. And I was, I was experiencing a ton of like real catharsis in so many ways through the performance itself. I mean, the, the joy of acting with these, these incredible actors. I can't even describe it. It, it is, it is so profound to be able to, to jump into a scene with someone like Seth Rogen and feel you were almost kind of harmonizing.

• 1:03:49Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:49Speaker 05

  It, it's so fun. I can, I can't even really describe it.

• 1:03:53Sean Fennessey?

  I want to ask you a lot about the filmmaking, which I think is really accomplishing cool. But there is one other thing that I'm thinking about at this stage of my life that I've felt was interesting about the movie. When you're in your 40s and you're making new friends or trying to make new friends, which is kind of a weird social situation, especially if you have kids. You find yourself, you're meeting a lot of new people all the time.

• 1:04:13Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:04:14Sean Fennessey?

  And there's this dance of like, well, you're not really my friend. Like, I have my real friends from over here, from my twenties or even my thirties. But then you get into a period of time where you're like, should I let this person be a part of this?

• 1:04:25Speaker 05

  Completely.

• 1:04:26Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know if you can maybe speak to that experience.

• 1:04:28Speaker 05

  Totally. Well, I think it is a big part of why it's sort of scary to to host new friends in a home that you feel will then reflect who you are, how you've kind of taken on this task of being an adult. Like, is this home adult enough? Am I adulting correctly?

• 1:04:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:48Speaker 05

  Like, as a kid, you're like, I don't know, this is my house, my mom's house. I don't know where the thing is. This is not my decision. And then you, in your twenties, you get away with saying like, I don't have a coffee table. I have this box and that'll be fine. And then you get older and you start feeling like, are my side tables like grown up enough? Does this feel wrong? Oh, God, what does this table say about me? Oh, my God, this couch says all the wrong things. And we start to really feel that when we bring strangers into our home. And and that's why a lot of people don't. I mean, we are, in this culture, very isolated from one another and increasingly so. And Joe and Angela, the characters Seth and I play, are people who never have people over. We don't socialize.

• 1:05:29Speaker 05

  We've really, in a in a pretty sad way, kind of lost touch with our social selves. We we, one of our major gripes at the beginning is, we don't have friends. And so it's people who have no friends attempting to make friends in their own home. It's a disaster from jump, and I think that many of us can identify, at least with the anxiety of that process that you you nailed. It's it's very specific to this age.

• 1:05:54Sean Fennessey?

  There's something really clever in the movie too about locating common ground, like in the rugs.

• 1:06:00Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:06:00Sean Fennessey?

  In the film, where you're like, OK, so we have this. Like, we can spend eighteen minutes discussing this. This will power us through, and maybe it'll lead to a new tributary of conversation for us so that we can get even more connected.

• 1:06:13Speaker 05

  And when one person is more willing to play that social game than the other.

• 1:06:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:06:17Speaker 05

  And and you think like, just get on board with this. Just embrace this rug. Conversation and and just participate because by by stonewalling it, you're making it impossible for this kind of like social lubrication to take hold for us all to move through this so we can survive this night.

• 1:06:33Sean Fennessey?

  You have this great dramatic tension in the movie where your your character is really trying to lean into that and and Joe is really.

• 1:06:40Speaker 05

  Willfully resisting.

• 1:06:41Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, he is a wall and he's he's got a snide comment and the editing and pacing of the movie is really interesting because you it really needs to be very ratatat. It needs to have but also needs to have enough space so you can frequently laugh at what Seth is saying.

• 1:06:53Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:06:53Sean Fennessey?

  Like Seth gets a little bit of.

• 1:06:54Speaker 05

  Oh, yes.

• 1:06:55Sean Fennessey?

  Can you talk maybe about making sure that the timing and pacing and the performances and the way the movie works played?

• 1:07:00Speaker 05

  Absolutely. Yes. I mean, it was a part of it is a result of having shot the film in sequential order, which was which was by design. It was something I was really excited about. I've never done that before, but the result of that, of course, is that by the time you finish the film, you really have felt the rhythm of the film as it comes together, not just through making an assembly as you shoot, which we often do, but really experiencing how the energy flows, knowing when it dips, knowing when it's going to need an extra jolt of of energy through through the editorial process, through music or whatever it is.

• 1:07:35Speaker 05

  This project was also new for me because there were no kind of extra bells and whistles that are often used to inject said energy into something. There's no cutting to a different location or, you know, any sort of magical realism or anything like that. We are a linear story told within one environment. So the rhythm was clear to me in a visceral sense, having directed it and of course performed in it. So I could feel it in my body, but sitting down and editing the film was about kind of finding the rhythm that would allow the story to feel like a train that's run off the tracks. Because that is what the movie is about. It's a it's a comedy of errors and I wanted you to feel propelled through it

• 1:08:16Speaker 05

  in a sort of out of control way, but in, of course, a very controlled way. You're you're in the hands of a. Of a film that is that is holding you, but I want you to feel that you are unable to predict the next moment and you are delighted by that. And certainly when directing and editing comedy, as you said, specifically someone as brilliant as Seth Rogen and the way he improvises and there's always an option to use another alt from Seth, to use an off-camera interjection, a joke that is kind of barely heard, kind of thrown away, and often those are my favorite jokes.

• 1:08:55Speaker 05

  And when to use it or when you've kind of overused them, that was was one of the more fun parts of the editing process. It felt like if we were kind of a, not to sound just really pretentious, but if the four actors kind of felt like a jazz quartet and Seth is a is an instrument that is, you know, you hear it when it's there and it is very powerful and then it's using that kind of wisely and making sure that you do it justice and you allow it to kind of have the effect that he intends it to when he gives so much as a performer. Everyone was firing on all cylinders and then I had the great honor of then sitting

• 1:09:39Speaker 05

  there and making sure to calibrate it. But the rhythm felt baked in. I've never experienced something like this where I really felt I just had to listen to what the movie was, to kind of ride the wave of the tone, to respond to it rather than to manipulate it.

• 1:09:55Sean Fennessey?

  So, one thing that jumped out to me the first time that I saw it was where you're putting the camera and how it's perceiving the characters in the frame. Like it felt like to me it was often at the distance from which the other character was standing. And because the whole movie, you don't realize this at first, but it's about like, are we being seen? Do I feel seen? Do I feel understood? Do I feel like in my marriage or even amongst new friends, is anyone looking at me and understanding who I am?

• 1:10:20Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:10:21Sean Fennessey?

  But, you know, you're making this in a very confined space. I feel like you probably have to diagram the movie pretty intently to make sure you're getting that. Maybe you can talk about how you conceived of it and if you had to change it at all once you started shooting.

• 1:10:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, absolutely. So Adam Newport-Bera, our extraordinary cinematographer. One of the first things he said when I presented him with this challenge of how do we make a single environment film feel exciting? And we obviously had all of these great examples that we were inspired by, namely, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, which was always my kind of north star. But we talked about how I wanted it to be very visceral. I always think when you're working on something that is originally, was originally a play, when it's an adaptation into film, you really have to justify, why make this a film? Mm-hmm. And I think the reason almost always has to be that you are using the medium of film to bring the audience closer to the emotional experience of the characters, that that's what film can do.

• 1:11:15Speaker 05

  You can allow the audience to feel almost telepathic. And that informed a lot of our decisions. We use a lot of really bold, very close, close-ups. And then our wides are really to accentuate the kind of emotional distance between people in a confined space. I love what Adam said, though. Right away, he said, "We'll make faces into landscapes." And we'll allow the audience to feel like they've really been somewhere, they've been on this adventure. That had a lot to do with our production design and Jade Healy just crushing it in the design of that set. But the lensing, the framing, was all designed to make you feel that you were slowly getting

• 1:11:56Speaker 05

  to know these people better, but you would also be kind of allowed to feel how much the other characters were, were able to, to recognize them. So when Penelope and Edward's characters first enter the apartment, we keep our distance for quite a long time because they are strangers to us and I want the audience to only get to know them as quickly as we do. They are mysterious and enigmatic creatures. We kind of hold them in high regard, so we often are looking up at them. They are not characters I want the audience to immediately feel that they can align with. So it was a joy to figure out how to film them within this environment, never being

• 1:12:38Speaker 05

  overly prescriptive as a director and telling them how to behave or where to be, but knowing we were choosing our framing and even sometimes, you know, the way we'd move with them. For instance, When they first entered the apartment, the only person who's filmed on Steadicam is Penelope, because her character kind of moves in a very different way. And I wanted you to sort of subconsciously feel that she has a different way of a different way of experiencing this night, and that she has some sort of different perspective, and you can't quite pin her down.

• 1:13:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:14Speaker 05

  So we called it PinaCam, because her character's name is Pina. So all of these choices were made, knowing that we wanted to have these kind of rules for ourselves as a crew, and then let the actors be completely free within that framework. The funny thing was, because I was in both worlds, I got to kind of experience that in two very different ways.

• 1:13:35Sean Fennessey?

  What is it like when you're directing a movie, and your character, there's this great moment when Pina is effectively defending your state of mind?

• 1:13:45Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:13:45Sean Fennessey?

  And what's happening to women at a certain time in their lives.

• 1:13:49Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:13:49Sean Fennessey?

  And, but you have to watch yourself be very vulnerable, and like, almost shattered at times as a performer, which is different than when you're working with a filmmaker, and they're kind of helping guide you to a performance. But you have to look at yourself and know that you're doing, like, how do you know you're doing right, basically?

• 1:14:08Speaker 05

  I think you can't ever know it, but you can sense that you, you know when you're being really honest. Everyone knows when they're being authentic within a feeling. And all I could do was understand that I was being as honest as I possibly could within a moment, and that I had to trust that that would be what would work best within the scene. I also think that in order to earn the other characters' reaction to me, I had to commit so completely to being that very vulnerable character, because they needed that level of vulnerability to react to. So it almost made it easier for me to perform,

• 1:14:51Speaker 05

  because it was on behalf of what I needed from them and their characters. So the kind of more broken I was, the more I gave Penelope to react to, for instance. So it was the first time I've kind of experienced acting in that way. Also, for as long as I've been acting, people have been saying to me, teachers from childhood have been saying to me, acting is just listening. I have never truly understood that until this project. And I'm ashamed that it took me 42 years to understand this. But with a cast this brilliant, I was completely able to understand that all I had to do was be present and react at what they were doing. And immediately, that automatically put me into the most authentic state of mind.

• 1:15:36Sean Fennessey?

  I feel like one consequence of working that way is that sometimes when you're working on a film, especially if you have some sort of creative control over it, so to speak, is that maybe you realize that what's on the page doesn't necessarily make sense with how things are going.

• 1:15:47Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:15:47Sean Fennessey?

  And so if you're shooting in sequence, how flexible can you be? And Seth, obviously, like a master improviser too.

• 1:15:52Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:15:52Sean Fennessey?

  How did you think about balancing the blueprint versus what you wanted to make?

• 1:15:57Speaker 05

  We had this rehearsal period before filming that was one of the non-negotiables, right? It's the first thing people give away in any production. They give away rehearsal like it's meaningless. It puts everyone in a disservice. So we had these two weeks where it was just Rashida Jones and Will McCormick, the cast and myself, sitting at a table, working through the script and understanding the intention of every moment, which allows for improvisation to take place because as long as you're aligned on the intention, anything goes. We understood our characters so well based on those sessions of chewing on the material together, forcing ourselves to justify every decision. It was like a gut check for every moment.

• 1:16:42Speaker 05

  And reinventing these moments as we went along. The film really dramatically changed in those two weeks in a very profound way. So by the time we started filming, everyone knew exactly what we were going for. And so I wasn't afraid to allow for that flexibility because I was sure that everyone understood the assignment, that we were all telling the same story. I think when that kind of flexibility can become a little dangerous, a little reckless, is if you haven't given everyone the opportunity to align on the goals, which, as we said often, that isn't ever offered to people. So I knew that everyone understood where we were trying to go, and I loved allowing for...

• 1:17:26Speaker 05

  surprises to take place because the crew understood exactly how we were going to capture the story and so the actors could make decisions that were spontaneous and we all felt it was never going to kind of throw us completely off the rails and we continued to reimagine the script as we went through. I mean, a week before we shot the ending, we did not know the ending.

• 1:17:49Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting.

• 1:17:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, and not in a way that felt scary. Seth put it beautifully the other day. He said, "We knew we would get it." There was never a fear of like, "Oh, my God, are we going to get this?" We had such an understanding of the story we were telling. It was just a matter of how we wanted to tell it. There were several different options. We were very much building the parachute on the way down, so to speak, but we knew we would land.

• 1:18:17Sean Fennessey?

  It's interesting because it has this real bookended feel. Like, when you're watching it, it feels very conceived.

• 1:18:21Speaker 05

  Everybody loves a bookend.

• 1:18:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:22Speaker 05

  Yes. I think we knew the bookend. We knew. I definitely felt strongly that the end frame would be as it is. I don't want to totally give it away, but I knew I wanted that. And it was about how do we want to get there and what do we want that to feel like? It was really this scene that takes place right before then. There's a very, there's a conversation that takes place. And it was about how will we do that in a way that has become... We've had this tonal shift at that point in the film. We've gone from kind of comedy of errors, broad comedy, a lot of talking, a lot of energy. We've shifted into

• 1:19:03Speaker 05

  a different space. How do we do that responsibly so the audience doesn't feel kind of duped?

• 1:19:09Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:19:09Speaker 05

  So they feel they're on board? And then how do we bring them out of that? How do we kind of guide them through that into something that feels satisfying? And that took so much collaboration on everyone's part. One of my favorite stories about this movie to tell is that there is a monologue that Edward gives in that third act that was written on his own, that he, all he said to us was, "I want to tell a story. Can you just put it in the script as Hawk's story?" And can-

• 1:19:38Sean Fennessey?

  It's a showstopper.

• 1:19:39Speaker 05

  Yes. And he said, "Can I perform it for the first time on film?" But he didn't want to be the one on camera. He wanted the camera to be on me when he first did it because he really wanted to get my- Honest reaction to it. And what a gift, what a thrill. And I knew that because he's Edward and he's one of the most brilliant people to ever work in this business, I adore him. I knew that it would be great. I had no idea how emotional it would make me. I had no idea how necessary that tonal ramp would be for the structure of the film. He brings the audience from one level to another. And then Seth masterfully brings it to a level place with his response also improvised.

• 1:20:23Sean Fennessey?

  So. Hmm. Oh, wow.

• 1:20:25Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:20:26Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, that's, yeah, that's amazing.

• 1:20:27Speaker 05

  Amazing.

• 1:20:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, the consequence of that, because the movie turns on that.

• 1:20:31Speaker 05

  The movie turns on that. That is like the knuckle. That is it. And they knew exactly how to handle that moment because we all just knew who we were playing. We knew, I remember feeling for the first time, like, I know how my character would react to absolutely, anything could happen in this movie, anything could happen at any moment, and I know how she would feel. And it felt so complete. And that's how everyone felt. And it was a joy as a director to feel that there was no real risk in allowing for that kind of flexibility and spontaneity. I was delighted by what they were bringing to it. And there were so many examples of that.

• 1:21:13Sean Fennessey?

  I want to ask you a little bit about the four of you and bringing Edward and Penelope into it, because I feel like at this point in each of your careers, you have screen personas, like, we have an expectation of like, what kind of character you play, or, you know, Edward is frequently very funny in movies, but not often asked to be funny.

• 1:21:31Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:21:32Sean Fennessey?

  Same for Penelope, like, she's been in Woody Allen films, but she's seen as like, a stormy European actress.

• 1:21:37Speaker 05

  Totally.

• 1:21:38Sean Fennessey?

  Who works in deep melodrama.

• 1:21:39Speaker 05

  Totally.

• 1:21:40Sean Fennessey?

  Why them? How did you think about kind of maybe playing with some of that expectation of their persona?

• 1:21:45Speaker 05

  Well.

• 1:21:48Speaker 05

  I think that the funniest people are often the smartest people. I think that really great comedians are people who have this ability to understand the scene from several different perspectives. And actors who have bodies of work, like these actors do, are clearly intelligent on so many different levels, in terms of their ability to understand the material, to bring real emotional authenticity to it, to have the confidence to be patient and to not... I say patient specifically because I think when you're working opposite someone like

• 1:22:30Speaker 05

  Seth Rogen, an actor who isn't as astonishing as Edward, would attempt to compete with his energy. And I think people often, even without trying to, they often just match the energy of the other person in the scene. It's a move that, you know, it is very common, that we just start matching each other's energy, and that can become kind of boring pretty quickly. Also, it's hard to match Seth, so it becomes watching someone try and fail. Edward is a completely different tone, and a different speed, and a different energy. And that is what becomes delightful to me, is that he's never ramping himself up to be

• 1:23:11Speaker 05

  Seth, and Seth is never changing his kind of rhythm to compete with Edward. It locks together like this harmonizing force that is only because of their skillset. Same thing with Penelope. Penelope has the confidence to take the time that feels authentic and real to her character, even in a scene with my character, who's incredibly chaotic and frenetic. And I...

• 1:23:41Speaker 05

  My dream was to have this cast. I did not expect that they would, you know, that it would fall into place. It was really extraordinary that, once I started reaching out to people, this material really drew them in right away. And the pitch of the process, which was new for all of us. No one had ever shot a film in sequential order. Everyone was intrigued by the idea of approaching this like a little off-Broadway play. I think that they are all at the points in their careers where they do things for the process, not the result. And the process felt interesting, and I got to be the beneficiary of that.

• 1:24:18Sean Fennessey?

  Do you see the movie as optimistic or pessimistic?

• 1:24:21Speaker 05

  Optimistic.

• 1:24:22Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:24:22Speaker 05

  I do. I-

• 1:24:23Sean Fennessey?

  Do you accept an alternative reading?

• 1:24:25Speaker 05

  Oh, 100%. It's actually my most, my favorite part of this is discussing the alternative readings of this.

• 1:24:31Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not sure if I have it, but I think it's going to be really curious to see it go out in the world and let people decide-

• 1:24:37Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 1:24:38Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe what the ending means.

• 1:24:39Speaker 05

  It's interesting, because there's a Venn diagram, and maybe this is spoilery, I don't know, I think it's fine. But, so really, in every screening so far that I've been present for, which has been many, which has been part of the joy of this, like, taking the film print around different theaters around the country and watching this with audiences has been the greatest gift of all time. And after almost every screening, I've said, "Can I ask you how you interpreted the end?" And there is a, on the surface, kind of positive way to interpret the end, and a negative way. And it's been split almost 50/50 in every room. And what I offer, my personal take on it, is kind of a combination. And I, if the question really is, do these people stay together, or do they break up?

• 1:25:22Speaker 05

  My take on it is that they break up by, they break up, but they can see each other again. They break up, but they can see themselves again. And it's this, a kind of, a very, I think, optimistic way at looking at the most difficult decision in their lives, which might be their greatest liberation. And we're seeing them at the point where they realize they have agency within their lives. But- Seth has a completely different opinion, which was so fun when we were filming it, because he thought, no, these people stay together forever. Like, they are soulmates. And I was like, well, I don't know. And it was so fun to be able to aim for a slightly

• 1:26:03Speaker 05

  ambiguous ending, which is of course, you know, what we all want to do. Everyone wants to make The Graduate and leave people wondering at the end. But you can very easily do that wrong and allow, you know, I've tried ambiguous endings before, and it can be really hard, because if you give them too little, they're like, what? I feel nothing. And if you give too much, they're like, that was obvious. I can't believe you thought that was ambiguous. So this one was, the dream was to have people enjoy the process of unpacking it at the end.

• 1:26:34Sean Fennessey?

  I'm still doing that.

• 1:26:36Speaker 05

  Oh, good, good.

• 1:26:37Sean Fennessey?

  I wanted to hear a little bit about maybe some of the more industry components of this. Your last movie was a studio movie.

• 1:26:45Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:26:45Sean Fennessey?

  And this was an independently made movie. It got picked up at a festival, you've got hugely celebrated at the festival. But like, I assume it wasn't made in the same way that previous films have been made, or the way that you have worked on films as an actor in the past. So maybe, why was it independent? Is that saying anything about like, how you want to be able to work, or how maybe just material like this fits into the equation these days?

• 1:27:06Speaker 05

  I think, for many reasons, this movie could never have been made within the studio system. I think from, everything from what we just discussed with the ending, I don't think that would have been allowed in the studio system. The score, the score was a choice that I think works really well. I'm really proud of what Dev Heinz created for our movie, but I think it was not a score that a studio would have allowed, and what they would have probably wanted to turn into a pretty basic romantic comedy. I think the process itself wouldn't, I don't think, I think I would have fought to shoot on 35, but I probably would have been turned down. It's hard. I think studios are so risk averse

• 1:27:49Speaker 05

  that every single point in the process that does not feel like a guarantee of success gets immediately kind of raked out. And of course, those risks are always what lead to the rewards, every time. Audiences can sense when you've risked something for them. They can, they can sense that you are risking them not liking it. And there's a thrill, like, ah, that could have gone very badly, and I respect that you risked me hating it, is a good feeling.

• 1:28:16Speaker 05

  We put this together independently because it was, you know, not the kind of material I think that these days a studio is grabbing up and saying like, "This is great. This is gonna work." People want more comedies in theaters, people meeting audiences. I think studios don't recognize that anymore. I think it's starting to change. But people have relegated many comedies to the world of streaming. They think, "Well, if it's a comedy, we can see it on TV." And certainly doesn't need to be shot on film because film is for giant epics. But we all grew up loving comedies that were shot on film, and it makes a difference. So I think this film had no chance within the studio system,

• 1:29:00Speaker 05

  and I'm so happy that it was made outside of it. The financing was put together independently through a few different parties. And then I'm really happy we didn't sell the domestic rights until Sundance. International had been sold off. But I wanted to go and earn the distribution of this film through the product itself. Not the promise, not the names. I wanted it to be judged based on the result of what we all made. It's a huge risk because if you take it to a festival, as you well know, you take it to a festival, it doesn't work, then you're boned. It's really tricky. So that night at Sundance was the most stressful night of all of our lives, certainly mine.

• 1:29:41Sean Fennessey?

  When you finished editing it and you were like, "This is locked."

• 1:29:43Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:29:45Sean Fennessey?

  Did you, in your bones, were you like, "I know this works. Like, I know this is good." Because you worked on a million projects. Like, you know, not everything works the same, the way you want it to work.

• 1:29:52Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. And there's been things I thought would work that didn't. So certainly, you can't ever be sure. I had not shown it to many people in many rooms. I mean, I'd shown it to mentors, friends, advisors, you know. Certainly, it was not made in a vacuum. But I hadn't shown it to large groups of people. So I knew that that would make or break it. I knew it was the kind of film that should be experienced in a room with lots of people. And I felt very confident that it would work, but I had no guarantee because there was no real experience to show that we'd, the groups we'd shown were not big. So.

• 1:30:31Speaker 05

  I felt confident, but definitely not sure. I felt sure that I loved it.

• 1:30:35Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:30:36Speaker 05

  And that was enough for me to lock it. But I've loved other things. You never know. So it is the alchemy of the theater experience. It's the chemical reaction of audience plus film. And that's not something that you can predict. I wish the studios realized that's not. It's not a math equation.

• 1:30:58Sean Fennessey?

  I agree with you. Is there any valuable feedback you got from any of those mentors or friends?

• 1:31:02Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:31:02Sean Fennessey?

  When you showed it to them?

• 1:31:03Speaker 05

  So much. Oh, my God. Thank God for people being honest. We really do have to be honest about each other's work. Like, it helps. It doesn't do anyone any favors when you just hold back on clear reactions that you're too afraid to give. But one was that we had filmed flashbacks that were meant to appear at the end of the film. There's a point where our characters are telling the story of how we met. And it is in the middle of a sequence that my fear initially was that it would be a sequence that would be such a tonal shift and a momentum shift from the earlier part of the film that the audience might feel impatient.

• 1:31:45Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:31:45Speaker 05

  And I, in a naive way, thought, I have to, like, keep them interested. I've got to hold their attention, so I'll cut to these beautiful flashbacks, and that'll hold them in. And Adam shot the most extraordinary scenes that are so beautiful and so sadly will never be seen because once we made the film and I showed smart people, a few of those smart people said, "What are you doing? Stick the landing. You made a film that takes place in one space. Don't bail on that by giving us this reprieve and letting us out into the world. You have to stick it out. You have to be bold and risk people becoming..."

• 1:32:27Speaker 05

  I don't know, detached, impatient, because maybe, maybe that anxiety that I was trying to protect the audience from is actually a necessary part of that emotional moment in the movie. And I, I think before this experience, did not have the confidence to do that. And I certainly didn't know that would work until seeing it with audiences. And I'm amazed by the patience audiences have for, for silence at the end of a very talky, talky, broad comedy.

• 1:32:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that's so interesting. I never would have guessed that you would have had something like that in the planning.

• 1:33:01Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:33:02Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, a couple more for you. Acting and filmmaking, does one take precedence at this stage of your career? You, you want to make films?

• 1:33:12Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. I mean, there's nothing better than directing. There's nothing better. I, I do value the opportunity to act in other people's films because it's film school. It's always been my proxy film school. And, you know, directors never get to see each other work. We operate in silos. So for me to be able to observe another director and, and learn something is, is exciting. I really hope I get to keep doing that. But in terms of what I enjoy more and what I consider my job, it's, it's directing.

• 1:33:40Sean Fennessey?

  Do you have a certain kind of movie that's an ambition of yours?

• 1:33:42Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. I mean, I love making comedies. I think making comedies feels like it's my offering to the world to allow people to get a little bit of, to feel, to feel some relief from life. Like, I think there's, there's actually nothing harder than making a good comedy. And it, it feels like this service that I want to be a part of. But I also love thrillers. And I just, I love psychological thrillers. And I, I want to. I want to make more of them. I want to, I really want to understand. I think it's, I think it's similar to comedy. Thrillers are similar because you, it is a manipulative

• 1:34:27Speaker 05

  genre, you know? It's like, I want you to feel this feeling. And it's, it's hard because the audience knows the reaction you want from them. So if you fall short of it, they'll be like, nope, I didn't feel scared. Same thing with bad comedy. If you, it's very clear that you want them to laugh. Whereas a drama, you can be ambiguous about like, I don't know, maybe that wasn't my intention. Maybe I wanted you to feel that. But, but a thriller, you're putting your cards on the table. Same with comedy. So I'm interested in that. I want to get better at that. I want to understand it. I, I grew up loving Hitchcock and I, so, so that's a real dream of mine is to work more in that space as well.

• 1:35:06Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. We end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they've seen? I know you're, you're, you're press touring, but have you been, have you watched anything you like recently?

• 1:35:15Speaker 05

  I mean, yes. Hold on, let me just, let me just make sure that it's, I've seen great things. I really loved Irupsha, Pete O's film.

• 1:35:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, sure. With Charlie.

• 1:35:28Speaker 05

  I loved it.

• 1:35:29Sean Fennessey?

  Tell me about, well, can you explain just a little bit?

• 1:35:32Speaker 05

  Yeah. So they made this film, so sort of similar to The Invite, they made this film linearly. They, they shot it in, in an absurdly small amount of days. I want to say it was like.

• 1:35:42Sean Fennessey?

  Like nine days.

• 1:35:42Speaker 05

  Nine days. It's extraordinary. And it is an incredibly effective kind of tone poem about, about a woman in a relationship who is really struggling to kind of find herself. And, and it's all about.

• 1:36:09Speaker 05

  Trying to figure out if you are in a relationship that is enough, that makes you feel enough, or is that part of your problem? That you're chasing a kind of heightened emotional experience? It's actually not very healthy, but is that the thing you're looking for? And specifically, this is a woman who wants love to feel like a volcano. And she wants it to feel like an eruption. And is it OK if it doesn't feel that way? And Pete O's created something that is similar to his other films, where it is all about the authenticity of the performances. He gathers people, they workshop materials together, similar to Swanberg or some of those folks,

• 1:36:51Speaker 05

  really just extraordinary to kind of experience something like that. But what I observed in that film was just a sensitivity to their environment that allowed the film to become something unexpected. I also just, I love that he shot it on a Canon 5D with a filmmaker hack that allows for this raw image to feel very filmic. And I loved it. I did a Q and A with Pete about this film. And I said, if I gave you $100 million to make a movie, what would you do? And he's like, I don't want it. And I was like, what? And he's like, I don't want it. That's too much money for a movie. And I was thinking about how much I disagreed,

• 1:37:33Speaker 05

  because there's a big part of me that, I mean, I just, I want to shoot like stunts and crazy shit all day long. But I so admire the authenticity of Pete as a filmmaker, and I just loved it.

• 1:37:47Sean Fennessey?

  It would make a nifty double feature with the invite as well.

• 1:37:50Speaker 05

  Yes, I'd be honored.

• 1:37:51Sean Fennessey?

  It's a great recommendation. Olivia, congratulations.

• 1:37:53Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 1:37:54Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you for doing the show.

• 1:37:55Speaker 05

  What a thrill. Big fan.

• 1:37:58Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks to Olivia. Thanks to C.R. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on today's episode. Thanks to Lucas Cavanagh for his production support. We are gonna have another episode soon, but I don't know when this episode is airing. So what I'm not gonna do is tease the next episode. But we'll see you on an episode soon.

• 1:38:35Speaker 04

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