Comedy gives us the ability to laugh at ourselves by laughing at others.
And nowhere is this better illustrated than in Olivia Wilde's 'The Invite' - a toe curling tale about a marriage gone stale and some rather unconventional neighbours.
Wilde plays Angela, a stay at home wife in San Francisco in need of some spark in her life.
Seth Rogen is her husband Joe, a disgruntled former rock musician turned tutor in a jazz conservatory who has lost his love of life.
Returning home after a day's work and complaining of back pain from the foldable bike he has used on the commute, he finds his daughter has gone on a sleepover and his wife is preparing to entertain some guests with jamon, cheese and a souffle she is baking.
When he discovers the guests are his neighbours Penelope Cruz's Pina and Edward Norton's Hawk, Joe is less than thrilled and insists he is going to raise with them the sex noises coming from their apartment at night.
Angela tells her husband to rein it in and also chides him for failing to bring home a bottle of wine.
They discover some Prosecco in the fridge and end up drinking most of it while arguing before receiving their guests.
Arriving at Angela and Joe's door, Hawk and Pina immediately sense some friction between the couple.
But that friction is nothing compared to what boils up over the course of a very tense evening.
Hawk is a firefighter with an eye for good furnishings.
Pina is a sex therapist whose observations raise Joe's eyebrows.
Joe gets defensive about not playing the one album for them he recorded as a rock musician.
The issue of the sex noises gets raised despite Angela's best efforts to suppress it from veing discussed and that leads to a revelation that sends the evening unexpectedly spiralling into a whole other direction.
Based on Cesc Gay's 2020 Spanish comedy 'The People Upstairs,' which itself was originally a play, it's easy to see how 'The Invite' could become too theatrical an experience.
However Wilde, her screenwriters Will McCormack and Rashida Jones and the cast thankfully avoid that.
To Wilde and her cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra's credit, we get to roam about the apartment as events spiral.
The film's pace also never sags.
More importantly, 'The Invite' really delivers as a comedy, enjoying a high success rate with one liners that make you wince.
Rogen, Wilde, Cruz and Norton land their gags with consummate ease.
Although if you were to single out performances, it would have to be Wilde and Rogen's - not just for their expertly timed comic jabs but the way they handle the pain, resentment and insecurity that's subsequently exposed in their characters' lives.
Couples will shift uncomfortably in their seats as they laugh at a movie that shines an uncomfortable light on marriage and societal norms.
And while audiences could be forgiven for thinking it's a bit like 'Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?,' fused with 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' with a much raunchier premise, its line in caustic humour may also remind them of Danny de Vito's 1989 comedy 'War of the Roses'.
With three films under her belt, Wilde again demonstrates her intelligence as a director.
Given 'Booksmart' was her debut feature, 'The Invite' also rams home what a good judge of ribald comedy she is.
('The Invite' was released in UK and Irish cinemas on July 3, 2026)
As Irish language cinema continues to make its mark home and abroad, it's good to see it return to the crime genre.
Students of Irish film will be familiar with Bob Quinn's grim but very memorable 1978 tale 'Poitin' with Donal McCann and Niall Tobin playing two Connemara ne'er-do-wells terrorising Cyril Cusack's poitin (moonshine) maker.
Damian McCann's recent 2021 movie 'Doineann' with Peter Coonan and Brid Brennan also ventured into this territory, with a tale about a Dublin investigative journalist whose wife and child go missing on an island off the Irish coast when he is called back to the mainland.
Now McCann is back with another ambitious Irish language thriller about a heist.
In 'Aontas,' Carrie Crowley plays Mairead, a woman who is part of a trio of unlikely robbers who try to pull off a heist in their local branch of the credit union.
Mairead's estranged sister, Brid Brennan's Cait is reluctantly brought on board, while making up the third leg of the stool is Eva-Jane Gaffney's Sheila, a young woman in an abusive marriage to Sean T O Meallaigh's Colly.
As you'd expect, the village heist goes awry, with Colly and a local bigwig, Marcus Lamb's Dara caught up in events.
And just as things start to go wrong in the credit union, Art Parkinson's rookie Garda officer, Eamonn is knocking around the village.
Working on a tight budget, McCann and his fellow screenwriter Sarah Gordon eschew narrative conventions and take a leaf straight out of Christopher Nolan's book.
As the film unfolds, we begin to realise a cinematic sleight of hand is at play, with 'Aontas' telling its story in reverse - 'Memento' style.
The result is a small scale thriller that keeps you invested, thanks to McCann's shrewd direction, Sorcha Nic Giolla Mhuire's resourceful film editing, a solid cast and a focused narrative that delivers on its ambition.
Brennan, Crowley and Gaffney make an engaging trio at the centre of McCann's IFTA nominated film.
Crowley is the lead who most intrigues, with her character Mairead simmering with rage for much of the movie until we eventually realise the source of it.
Lamb, O Meallaigh, Parkinson, Nassen Morgan. Brid Ni Chumhaill and Frankie McCaffrey provide further colour.
As cinematic parlour games go, 'Aontas' does a pretty good job of seeing its concept through.
In fact it's so good, it leaves you wondering what McCann could do if he was given 10 times this film's £450,000 budget.
Hopefully he will get the chance to do just that in future projects.
('Aontas' was broadcast on TG4 and made available for steaming on the BBC iPlayer on March 16, 2026)
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